Research topic:

Collective memory and forgetting

Supervisors:

Jacky Swan and Gerry McGivern

A summary of the research area:

Subject of my Doctoral research is collective memory and the mechanics of its loss. Understanding memory is essential to understanding social constructs. Social constructs have no meaning outside of their past, and especially those areas of the past that are ‘remembered’. However, the nature and function of collective memory are not well understood, with some literature claiming it to be a system for learning and maintaining knowledge, while other suggesting that the main function of memory is to forget.

My research explores notions of memory and forgetting from the epistemology of practice by looking at professionalized project environments, as places traditionally experiencing difficulties with knowledge-sharing and retention. Several theoretical concepts are explored and existing theory on organizational memory expanded.