ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the inauguration of the new Indian memorial in Viller-Guislains, France, through the prism of ‘atmosphere’. Using observation and auto-ethnography at the 10 November 2018 event, it adopts a ‘ground-level’ approach as an entry point for grasping the complexity of multi-scalar and multidimensional commemorative phenomena and its meanings for different types of actors. It finds that different participants experience the commemorative moment differently according to their place in a codified spatial organisation and, more generally, an assigned or claimed social position. Reading commemoration as a lived experience thus allows us to understand it as an articulation of national sentiment, as well as a confrontation with otherness and class consciousness.
