Memory and Migration

This chapter examines the interlinkages between memory and migration by focusing on how the preconditions prompting migration have bearing on the types of cultural memories (re)produced by migrants in diaspora. Herein, the chapter examines the intersecting use of the homeland language postmigration, and how it reveals connections between cultural memory and everyday places postmigration; cultural memories crisscross into and become part of the everyday vernacular of the migrants’ narratives. By using language as an exemplar of the nexus between memory and migration, the focus shifts from memory objects and materialities used to maintain cultural memory postmigraton, to how memory is enacted through the body, via language in various postmigration contexts and how it activates a schematic narrative template. Influencing (re)productions of cultural memory are experiences of dislocation and trauma, as well as politics of migration and memory.