remembering – Ingatan

The community map has provided a counter-narrative, and displays a historical continuity for the Penan community, whereas the PPP is the location for the politics of space in asserting the Penan’s historical discontinuity by facing deforestation. If we take time and space as a carrier of meaning, therefore the Penan community beautifully reflects the dimension of time and space via the map and the park. This is a way for the Penan community to recuperate from the cultural trauma of deforestation. Imaginatively, they have taken deforestation to another level; by doing an active remembering. In other words, they simply refuse to forget.

Why Memory Studies

As an all-encompassing sociocultural phenomenon, memory plays an important role in various areas of social practice. The calendar of commemorations –national, religious, ethnic– seems to be ever-increasing. Remembering and forgetting are major themes in contemporary literature and art. Memory enjoys practically top billing in daily and weekly newspapers. It has become a controversial topic in politics and the public sphere (in the context of phrases such as ‘national tradition’, ‘Holocaust memory’, or ‘truth and reconciliation’). And memory even occupies us in our free time, in the form of thriving heritage industry. [Astrid Erll, Memory in Culture]

Tag: remembering

Penan’s Cultural Trauma