ABSTRACT
Unlike, say, cows, molluscs or monkeys, human beings are temporal beings (Nietzsche, 2008; Heidegger, 1978): to be human is, among other things, to be conscious of time and to live by manipulating temporal constructs – identity, origin, destination, memory, trace, story, past/present/future and so on (Ricoeur, 2004; Rüsen, 2001). Human groups and communities come and continue to exist, at least in part, through the stories that they tell themselves about who they ‘are’, where they ‘began’ and where they ‘are going’ and through other memory practices, such as anniversaries, memorials and monuments, that embed these narratives in social life through ritual (Lowenthal, 1985; Samuel, 1994).
