Documents as Collective Memory

The opening paragraph of the General Guidelines reads: “The Memory of the World is the documented, collective memory of the peoples of the world – their documentary heritage – which in turn represents a large proportion of the world’s cultural heritage.”¹⁰⁷ For the purpose of this subchapter, it is worth highlighting the statement that documentary heritage represents collective memory. The concept of “collective memory” was introduced in academic circles by Maurice Halbwachs in the first half of the twentieth century to emphasize the social dimensions of memory, arguing that not only individuals but also groups had a memory, constantly reconstructed in the present on the basis of the “material traces, rites, texts and traditions left behind by the past.”¹⁰⁸ This perspective on memory was received with interest by the scientific community, and has developed into a research field known as Memory Studies.¹⁰⁹ Scientific considerations of collective memory, and also the related concept of cultural memory, are complex and relevant in the broad field of Heritage Studies yet will be incorporated neither in this chapter nor elsewhere in this dissertation.¹¹⁰ Here, the interest lies in explaining how the notion of collective memory is understood in the context of MoW, and as argued below, the meaning is not entirely the same. Nevertheless, for the purpose of clarifying what collective memory means in MoW, it is useful to commence by employing a distinction made by Olick for whom collective memory represents an umbrella

106 Ibid.

107 Edmondson, Memory of the World: General Guidelines, 2.

108 Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory. trans. Lewis A. Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).

109 Astrid Erll, and Ansgar Nünning, eds. Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 2008).

110 The concept of cultural memory has been discussed by Aleida Assmann, "Canon and Archive." in Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, ed. Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning (Berlin:

Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 97–107.

concept referring to both products and processes.¹¹¹ Following this perspective, collective memory is not only embodied in the material trace of the past but also in people and their social interactions and practices, with the existence of these different facets of memory acknowledged in MoW.¹¹² However, the collective memory promoted by MoW comprises products not also processes, which could easily include cultural manifestations that would normally be considered under the ICH.¹¹³ The General Guidelines quite clearly explain that the intangible and oral heritage is the province of other UNESCO Programmes.¹¹⁴

However, MoW seems to have previously been broader in scope concerning oral traditions, because even if MoW was never concerned with the traditions themselves, it was concerned with their documentation. According to the first Guidelines from 1995, “the Memory of the World Programme will encourage the maintenance and the documenting of this [oral]

tradition through oral history projects, thus ensuring cultural continuity through the use of technology.”¹¹⁵ In other words, MoW would make recordings of oral traditions, preserving and making them accessible. This is more clearly stated in a protocol of an IAC meeting from 1995, providing the following explanation regarding the scope of MoW: “the recording of oral history and culture is to be encouraged and the recordings may be considered for inclusion within the ‘Memory of the World’ Programme.”¹¹⁶ Nevertheless, this condition has changed in the revised Guidelines from 2002, the guiding instrument of relevance today:

“While oral history recordings, once in existence, are part of the documentary heritage, and their creation is encouraged – especially in cultures where oral tradition is an important factor - the Memory of the World Programme does not duplicate other UNESCO Programmes which deal with this specific area of heritage.”¹¹⁷ However, despite this change, MoW does not seem to be entirely indifferent to “intangible” aspects of memory, as revealed by how the selection criteria for the MoW Register have evolved.

111 Olick K. Jeffrey, “From Collective Memory to the Sociology of Mnemonic Practices and Products,”

in Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, ed. Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 151-62.

112 Stephen Foster et al., Memory of the World Programme, 9.

113 See UNESCO, Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, 2003, Art. 2(2), which lists five broad domains in which intangible cultural heritage is manifested, namely: oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage; performing arts; social practices, rituals and festive events; knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; and traditional craftsmanship.

114 Edmondson, Memory of the World: General Guidelines, 8.

115 Stephen Foster et al., Memory of the World Programme, 9.

116 UNESCO, Final Report of the Second Meeting of the International Advisory Committee of the “Memory of the World” Programme, Paris, France, 3 – 5 May 1995, (no: CII-95/CONF.602/3), Paris, 1995.

117 Edmondson, Memory of the World: General Guidelines, 9. Italics in the original.

A separate criterion called “Social Value” was specified in the 1995 Guidelines, and was meant to apply if documentary heritage “has outstanding social, cultural or spiritual value which transcends a national culture.”¹¹⁸ However, this criterion no longer appears in the revised Guidelines from 2002. A chronological analysis of the meeting protocols of the MoW Committees reveals that it was initially taken out on the grounds that it is comprised under criterion 5 called “Subject/Theme”, ¹¹⁹ which was meant to apply if an item “documents in an outstanding way an important subject or major theme of world history or culture.”¹²⁰ While the extent to which the criterion social value fits under the criterion subject/theme is open to debate, this is not of interest here. Of greater interest is that the criterion of social value was taken out in the revised Guidelines from 2002, yet this situation has since changed again. In 2006, the Register Sub-Committee of MoW recommended a criterion on community and spiritual significance.¹²¹ The Bureau prepared the final draft statement for such a criterion, which was eventually called “social/spiritual/community significance”,¹²² and was approved by the IAC in 2007.¹²³ As explained in the adopted paragraphs, which are today annexed to the 2002 Guidelines, this criterion allows communities to show their emotional attachment to documentary heritage for the way in which it contributes to a community’s identity and social cohesion.¹²⁴ It further states: “Application of this criterion must reflect living significance – the documentary heritage must have an emotional hold on people who are alive today.”¹²⁵ It further explains that “once those who have revered the documentary heritage for its social/spiritual/community significance no longer do so, or are no longer living, it loses this specific significance and may eventually acquire historical significance.”¹²⁶

Living significance does not imply that MoW deals with oral traditions and consequently the processes of memory; indeed, it still deals with recordings and thus products of memory.

However, it does reflect a certain view of documentary heritage as playing a key role in community formation and maintenance. This idea was expressed more clearly in the very first

118 Stephen Foster et al., Memory of the World Programme, 26.

119 UNESCO, Report of the Second Meeting of the Bureau of the International Advisory Committee of the

“Memory of the World” Programme, Manzanillo, Mexico, 26 September 2000, Paris, 2000.

120 Stephen Foster et al., Memory of the World Programme, 25.

121 UNESCO, Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Register Sub-Committee, 2006.

122 UNESCO, Report of the Meeting of the Bureau of the International Advisory Committee of the “Memory of the World” Programme, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, 19-20 March 2007, Paris, 2007.

123 UNESCO, Final Report of the Eighth Meeting of the International Advisory Committee of the “Memory of the World” Programme, Pretoria, Republic of South Africa, 13-15 June 2007, (no: CI/INF/UAP/2008/01.), Paris, 2008.

124 Addendum I in Edmondson, Memory of the World: General Guidelines.

125 Ibid.

126 Ibid.

draft Guidelines from 1993, not as selection criterion but rather as something that applies to MoW as a whole: “the library and archival heritage is a form of memory of the citizens of the world, an active memory of such importance that constant care is required to keep it always accessible in the form most convenient for the needs.”¹²⁷ From this perspective, the use of the notion of collective memory in the context of MoW is nothing but a reflection of the status of documentary heritage as heritage of humanity: “…books, periodicals and manuscripts constitute the collective 'Memory of the World'. Other than our individual memories, they span the generations and the centuries.”¹²⁸ This understanding of documentary heritage as active memory with a living significance does not differ from that of Halbwachs, given that collective memory defines and holds communities together in both cases. However, whereas Halbwachs presents this collective memory as a constant reconstruction of the present, MoW, for which the Register will be a significant document in itself,¹²⁹ considers it a legacy of the past that should be “retained undistorted and undiminished.”¹³⁰ Such an understanding reflects the influence of libraries and archives in MoW, and particularly their understanding of what documents are. Since the notion of documentary heritage is based on that of document, an analysis of this latter concept now follows.