Publication | "What are memories policies for?" By Sarah Gensburger and Sandrine Lefranc

Sarah Gensburger and Sandrine Lefranc, respectively member and leader of the IPEV working group “Public policies against violence, a comparative perspective” published a new book dealing with memory policies.

The summary of the book on the editor’s website, Presses de Sciences Po:

“Forgetting the past is condemning ourselves to repeat it. Since the end of the 1990’s, this idea has inspired a great develoment of memory policies all over the world: museums, memorials, monuments, civil education and insitutions are in charge of the writing of History, of honoring the victims, of telling what is right or wrong, of allowing citizens and decisionners to build peaceful societies.

But these policies did not reach their objectives. They have not been able to prevent the rising of populisms or to stop violent political actions.

In order to understand the reasons of this failure and to shed light on the public debate, the authors start from the roots of the memory policies themselves and wonder, without any concession of partisan position: where are they from? What do they effectively do? What are they for? How can we make them efficient?