Memories and the production of cultural narratives and popular images in Egypt

During the last decade, the production of several academic works and research-actions on memories in the Arab Worlds, shows a rising interest in the past, its uses by different actors, and the process of its diffusion. While some scholars analyzed the formation of collective and national memories and their transmission through generations, others focused on materialities and fragments. Both points are crossed by dynamics of oblivion and remembering through oral history and written texts. In this panel, we are more concerned with the transmission of memories through the production of cultural narratives and popular images. To this aim, we ask three main questions that help us understand sociologically memorial dynamics: Who (the role of actors), how (processes of transmission and dissemination), and what (the content itself). To narrow our scope and to avoid any undesired generalizations, we will focus on questioning what is “popular” and “cultural” in memories. What are the social, cultural, and national categories that “popular memories” refer to? How the “cultural” and the “popular” are crafted and how they are redefining and reshaping social imaginaries? By doing so, we are aiming to link heritage to memory studies and grasp the challenges that face memory work in Egypt. It follows to rethink critically the role of memory agents in transmitting images from the past and disseminating folkloric images on women and historic cities.