Collective memory, cultural heritage and TCKs
Individual humans can remember occurrences of their own personal lifetime as well as of collective past. The former is composed by the recollection of personal-event memories, either of sensory (e.g. smells, tastes, sounds, sights, emotions) or of episodic qualities (e.g. events organized in terms of times, places, people, and knowledge). The latter includes accounts of events happening both before and during an individual’s life. Collective memories normally are shared, but also could be passed on (and constructed) by social groups. Cultural heritage deals both with collective memories and with those memories that are socially (and politically) memorialized. Cultural heritage then could be seen as the physical representation of these collective memories: monuments, spaces and artefacts of the past that iconographically are related to past events and are used to define today’s identity of a social group, or more commonly, of a nation-state.
Most socially recognized collective memories are today structured under the form of national memories. In this sense, many social scientists recognize that memory of the past is not only influenced but also created by the social and political context of the present. What today is selected to be designated as cultural heritage, that is representative of the past to be preserved for future generations, responds to what today is considered relevant to explain (and sometimes, to justify) contemporary’s realities. Indeed, nationalistic collective memories can be evoked at particular places or traditions (e.g., Palace of Versailles, First WW battle fields, the US Declaration of Independence text, traditional dances of Bali, Mongolian calligraphy, the Portuguese fado, or Chinese acupuncture), and they have, in turn, the potential to shape such sites (e.g., the recreation of Carcassonne castle by the superimposition of an imaginary medieval architecture on France). Accordingly, some authors add that it is irrelevant to discuss whether or not a particular remembered event or process actually happened in the past (that is, the difference between history and memory): all that matters are the specific conditions under which such memory is originated, and how responds to today’s desires. Since the nineteenth century these desires run parallel to the creation of nation-states, past events and spaces nominated as national heritage aim to build an historically justified nation to be shared by all citizen as part of their cultural identity. For example, each European state recognises particular past as its common nation’s origin, whether this is rooted in Classic Greece, Anglo-Saxon, Roman, Iberian, Gaul, Viking or Medieval times.
Individuals, next to their personal memories, incorporated collective memories even they do not part of their own personal lifetime, but to a far past. This could happen through social communication and educational curricula, which are the traditional channels established by nation-states governments to build and enforce a national identity among its citizens. But also through the fruitful communication among the members of a particular community when official discourses are either not fully accepted (e.g. alternative views of indigenous communities or culturally/politically segregated minority groups), or simply are not accurate to the actual collective memory of an individual. The latest is probably the case of TCKs.
Even TCKs possess multicultural identities or a multicultural identity, they share a sense of collective identity in relation to them as a community. They feel comfortable around other TCKs: they not only feel fully understood among those who have a similar mindset and worldview, but they tend to feel part of a special in-group. In this sense, they are able to recognize their differences with other groups of migrants, but especially in relation to people which life’s perfections are not affected both by global and serial mobility. Their collective memories are different, and respond and represent a different perception of cultural identity. Not surprisingly then, they do not feel attached to particular discourses of national identity, and accordingly to any heritage that responds to such modern nation-state ideologies.
Nevertheless, this does not mean that none tangible or intangible heritage could actually have meaning to them. Only that, traditional forms of heritage responding to nation-state ideologies of collective memories are not applicable to their experience of living in between cultures and places. Instead, other forms of heritage need to be imagined.