Connecting dots: Family Reminiscence

TY - CHAP

T1 - Connecting dots

T2 - Family Reminiscence

AU - Murakami, Kyoko

AU - Jacobs, Rachel L.

PY - 2017/2/27

Y1 - 2017/2/27

N2 - Reminiscence is a self-reflecting process on past events and experiences. Not only does it enable past experiences to be brought to light through talk, but it also creates an affective environment, which allows participants to explore and construct a representation of the self (Buchanan and Middleton, 1995). A reminiscence conversation is a dynamic talk-in-interaction, which can produce valuable learning experience for the participants involved. Reminiscence talk contains rich, personal, historic data that can reveal and inform family members of an unknown past. In this seminar/chapter, we shall present a discursive approach, a methodology that captures the dynamics of reminiscence. We analyse collected conversational data of British family members reminiscing on their past as a joint family activity. Through such talk-in-interaction, the family members develop continuity within the family history. We explore how intergenerational relationships are formed through associations with membership categories and reveal how vital information is passed onto future generations. Unlike conventional reminiscence used for therapeutic purposes, family reminiscence is a discursive practice of connecting the dots of recalled moments of individual family members lives and is geared towards building a family’s shared future for posterity. Lastly, we consider a wider implication of family reminiscence in terms of human development. http://www.infoagepub.com/products/Memory-Practices-and-Learning

AB - Reminiscence is a self-reflecting process on past events and experiences. Not only does it enable past experiences to be brought to light through talk, but it also creates an affective environment, which allows participants to explore and construct a representation of the self (Buchanan and Middleton, 1995). A reminiscence conversation is a dynamic talk-in-interaction, which can produce valuable learning experience for the participants involved. Reminiscence talk contains rich, personal, historic data that can reveal and inform family members of an unknown past. In this seminar/chapter, we shall present a discursive approach, a methodology that captures the dynamics of reminiscence. We analyse collected conversational data of British family members reminiscing on their past as a joint family activity. Through such talk-in-interaction, the family members develop continuity within the family history. We explore how intergenerational relationships are formed through associations with membership categories and reveal how vital information is passed onto future generations. Unlike conventional reminiscence used for therapeutic purposes, family reminiscence is a discursive practice of connecting the dots of recalled moments of individual family members lives and is geared towards building a family’s shared future for posterity. Lastly, we consider a wider implication of family reminiscence in terms of human development. http://www.infoagepub.com/products/Memory-Practices-and-Learning

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - reminiscence

KW - social remembering

KW - intergenerational relations

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 9781681236193

T3 - Advances in cultural psychology: constructing human development

SP - 293

EP - 318

BT - Memory Practices and Learning

A2 - Mäkitalo, Åsa

A2 - Linell , Per

A2 - Säljö, Roger

PB - Information Age Publishing

CY - Charlotte, NC

ER -