ABSTRACT
Populism has a vision for the future: deliverance from these others. In other words, populists offer ideas about identity and alterity, power and causality, present and future; not bad for a political movement. One of populism’s most powerful resources is the past. Memory is used to legitimize populist claims and delegitimize complexities encountered in the present. One of memory studies’ most cherished ideas are that memory always emerges from, expresses, and produces collective identity, which is opposed to some kind of alterity. Successful public memories are generative. They generate debate, elicit other memories, shape and change thinking, initiate action and lead it along certain paths. One memory project with the declared aim of generating a more humane future is the Refugee Tales project.
