In determining the conditions of our existence, analytical pre-eminence is afforded to the human. This is a remnant of the traditional primacy, over all other life, attributed to the spirituality of humanity. However, such humanist remains of this idea have, during the 20th century, come under sustained scrutiny. Materialist post-humanists warn of the dangers of relying on a separation of (human) life from matter (Bennett 2010). The material environment has a generative role in the establishment and maintenance of the conditions of our existence, so the distinction between human life and matter can, therefore, be blurred. Actor-Network Theory (ANT) extends this post-humanism by obscuring the distinction between the abstract and the corporeal. A composite methodology, then, leads us into a position whereby humans, non-humans, materials, and the intangible all play a part in enacting the conditions for being.
In this paper, I adopt such a methodology in the study of collective memory, against the backdrop of appeals for an appreciation of the role of materials in the construction of memory (Radley 1990). For too long, collective memorialisation has been attended to on the basis of the analytical primacy of humans in explaining how it has come about and for what purposes. I will address the materiality of remembering and forgetting and seek to attribute responsibility for particular mnemonic effects—both positive and negative—on political and juridical domains accordingly.
