ABSTRACT
While still an emergent research field with a distinctive shift from concern with the historical knowledge of events to that of memory, memory studies have become an academic field per se. Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World interrogates the extent to which, by a process of collectivization of personal or family memories and (hi)stories, social actors of the present partake in generating and consolidating group identities but also foster the emergence of the memory of slavery in public space. The book’s introduction reviews existing literature and establishes the conceptual framework. Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World focuses on the longue durée, alternates between a synchronic and a diachronic perspective, and examines the historical stages and modalities that contributed to the emergence or suppression of a personal and public memory of slavery and of the slave trade. The volume evaluates if the resurgence of the memory of slavery provides an effective alternative counter-narrative to the dominant (master) narrative and whether this discourse is bound to be gradually incorporated into the national narrative of the countries under study or to remain on the margins, due to its dissonant nature.
