Thesis Supervisor: Amit S. Rai

Thesis: How Do You Imagine the Future: Politics of memory against neoliberal dispossession

July 2021

Abstract

"How do you imagine the future? Politics of memory against neoliberal dispossession” looks at several practices related to the collective memory of traumatic events linked to state violence. Based on concrete cases—particularly in Argentina and Spain-, the concept of "memory politics" is used to think memory as a contemporary performance, memory as an evertransforming process.

This is the basis for drafting the privatisation of memory-past experiences and knowledge—as the key concept into neoliberal memory politics, politics linked to processes of dispossession with a colonial heritage. Confronted with neoliberal memory policies, the need to understand memory as a common arises. Drawing on the "secret agreement between past generations and the present one" (Walter Benjamin), this thesis moves the politics of memory beyond reading past times, that is as a fundamental political tool for the development of times yet to come.

Author: Jose Iglesias Gª-Arenal