ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I explore some epistemologies of the self that assist my conceptualization of a synchronic, interactional approach to memory. I borrow from interactional sociology to demonstrate that the norms governing specific interactions are of key importance when we want to analyze how people talk about pasts that they have not witnessed themselves. Herbert Mead’s distinction between Me and I, and Goffman’s ‘presentations of the self’, are central to this theoretical framework that brings interactional sociology into memory studies. I demonstrate how Mead’s and Goffman’s ideas facilitate an understanding of the remembering self as plural and flexible. At the end of this chapter, I introduce the concept of ‘memory catalogue’ to capture the range of collective memory narratives that are known by individuals and from which they can select the one that they believe fits specific situations and interactional contexts.
