What is ‘needed’ to keep remembering? War-specific communication, parental exemplar behaviour and participation in national commemorations

Manja Coopmans*, Tanja Van der Lippe, Marcel Lubbers

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Given the abundance of literature on collective memory practices, there is relatively little empirical research on the socialization processes explaining the transmission of such practices. This article examines to what extent war-specific communication and parental exemplar behaviour function as a link between the collected memories of individuals and society's collective memory. Utilizing data from an online survey conducted in 2014, we focus on participation in the activities organized on Remembrance Day and Liberation Day in the Netherlands in remembrance of the Second World War. We distinguish between public and private practices. Our findings highlight that different forms of socialization substitute for one another. Whereas communication with non-relatives is particularly relevant for those communicating less frequently with parents about past war experiences, parental exemplar behaviour, such as participating in the two-minute silence on Remembrance Day, plays a bigger role amongst those with lower levels of communication with either relatives or non-relatives.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)746-769
Number of pages24
JournalNations and Nationalism
Volume23
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Oct 2017

Funding

The LISS panel data were collected by CentERdata (Tilburg University, The Netherlands) through its MESS project funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. The authors would like to thank all participants in the Migration and Social Stratification seminar at the ICS, Jeroen Weesie, Duane Alwin, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Keywords

  • collective memory practices
  • national commemorations
  • parental participation
  • socialization
  • war-specific communication

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