By the term “Cultural Amnesia” I refer to a diagnosis of a condition that has been caused by external damage or trauma. This may result in a society forced to forget about their roots, culture and connection to the landscape, once been embraced by a community as a whole but now been forgotten and replaced by different ideals that are displaced from context.  It is an assumption that something is missing or is about to be forgotten, that would have disastrous consequences. The causes of the amnesia need to be diagnosed and identified and their possible effects imagined. The term “Culture” here can refers simply to the way how have been done and developed in a specific context from the beginning of times. Cultural amnesia, then, would be the widespread ignorance of and indifference to what used to be important but has now fallen into forced displacement, resulting in a possible “dystopian future”.  The aim of the research is to analyse the recent developments in Norrland and the Sápmi areas that are largely affected by capitalist space production. It highlights also the story of displacement and injustice the Sámi have suffered. There has been an exploitation of the Sámi rights by the government and evidence of the Swedish state land theft from the Sámi. The real repression began with the modernization of society, where the causes lay in factors like the need for forest, agricultural efficiency and new definitions of land ownership. Today the indigenous people find themselves fighting a battle against the state and multinational mining companies, while their land, cultural heritage and their way of life is at stake.  Can we imagine a cure, a plan of care or an antidote to Cultural Amnesia?

Thesis advisor: Roberto Goizueta / In the context of a globalized and postmodern world, there is a vector of thought in Mexican culture that remains fixated on the present, invested in the urgency of the moment, and content with hurried decisions in political and economic matters. Such a mindset makes little room for memories and, in fact, promotes rapid forgetfulness, especially of uncomfortable memories. Nevertheless, another vector of thought simultaneously persists, one that prizes memories, emphasizes traditions and ancestral anamnetic forms, and is quite richly expressed in small `campesinos' and indigenous communities, where men and particularly women - though otherwise lacking political influence - are actively engaged in preserving their memories. Not surprisingly, these two vectors of thought share an uneasy co-existence. In these pages I will argue that these memories are actually considered dangerous on two fronts: first, because they interrupt our productive present and the system we live in; and, second because they challenge us to imagine, and even to work toward, a more just future, one not characterized by easy amnesties or corporate forgetfulness. I will support the view that memories enable us to conduct an honest reconstruction and analysis of the past, in all of its complexity, and then oblige us to integrate lessons learned truthfully in the present. In Mexico, such memories need to be listened to and integrated as part of our identity as a society and a Church for, if we do not, we will always remain a broken society and an incomplete Church. This position, along with the questions that it raises, will be confronted and illuminated herein by a theological perspective on memory. After all, it was Israel's belief in being in the memory of God that gave that people their solid communitarian consistency. Later on, the Christian community inherited this anamnetic culture as the core of its liturgical life and Christian praxis: "Do this in memory of me". Johann Baptist Metz reflects theologically on the "cultural amnesia" that drags us towards a dehumanizing progress, emphasizing merely technological advancement. Societal adoption of such an attitude inevitably leaves victims in its wake, namely, those who do not - or cannot - achieve the standards of success established by the technocrats. Metz identifies the destruction of memory as a typical tool of totalitarian domination. The slavery of human beings begins when their memories are taken away; this is the principle and foundation of all colonization. Metz explains that we must remember the memories of these victims in order to interrupt our present situation and activate creative resistance. He suggests a mysticism characterized by suffering unto God while, at the same time, keeping our eyes open to reality. Consequently a praxis is realized wherein we act as subjects in freedom participating actively in the construction of history. It is important for the Mexican Church to recover these memories at both the social and ecclesial levels and to allow them to interrupt us, because they constitute a new way for us to look back at what we have been, and to construct what we want to be. In doing so, we can be a community of memory and hope. / Thesis (STD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Theology.

A comparative analysis of Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, with a focus on individual as well as collective memory work in historically marginalized indigenous and African-American communities, respectively. This represents a critical study of how the novels invoke progressive and redemptive models of remembering, as well as foreground the role of spiritual guides in the transformative process from trauma towards healing.