ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how an expanded view of autobiographical memory informs our treatment of vital memories. It shows how the study of autobiographical memory needs to be enhanced with a greater concern for the interactional processes within which stories about our personal pasts are mobilised. The study of autobiographical memory in psychology begins with Endel Tulving's distinction between procedural, semantic and episodic memory. As work on autobiographical memory has demonstrated, the events that tend to be remembered are those that have some significance for us as social beings. The chapter focuses on work from discursive psychology, in particular the social remembering approach developed by David Middleton. Histories such as these make it clear that technology and techniques are intrinsic to what we traditionally think of as 'human' or 'psychological' capacities. The philosopher Michel Serres has written the history of science and technology as a cycle where humans and things appear to 'exchange properties' with one another through their ongoing interactions.
