Laney Lenox on the Limits of Memorialisation
The researcher and writer speaks about how we memorialise the past, and how that process can help or hinder how we learn its lessons.
I spoke to writer, researcher and good pal, Laney Lenox! She recently completed her PhD, which focuses on non-linear memory work from an anarchist perspective. We got to chat about memorialisation, community building and the recent bans by German police on protests calling for the end of the genocide in Gaza.
As you’ll see in the first question, Laney and I met at a course in Corrymeela (a very inspiring community in Northern Ireland that’s been doing fascinating work). I’d definitely recommend some of their courses if you’re able to go!
We first met at a storytelling course at Corrymeela. What kind of role has storytelling played in your research since?
When I went to that weekend my whole Masters research idea was exploring storytelling as a tool of conflict transformation. There’s a theorist that I’ve used heavily during my PhD - his name is Michael Jackson, funnily enough - who talks about storytelling as this existential imperative, it’s the way we make meaning of our own individual lives in the wider context and vice versa. I’ve moved more into the memory studies realm and the way we make meaning out of the past through a process of constant storytelling.
Back then you lived in Belfast and now you’re living in Berlin, two places with a very interesting relationship with the idea of remembering. What insights have you gained from living in those places?
I’m also from the American south, so that’s a really interesting place in terms of remembering. I’ve noticed more of the differences than the similarities. Northern Ireland and the US have not had this more federalised memory process in the same way [as Germany]. In NI, there hasn’t been a Government-led effort so you find these more grounded, individual memory cultures. It’s been pretty interesting and collective, a lot of parts of society that you might not expect to be talking together, have been. There’s opportunity in that, but there are also pitfalls because it might never happen.
“Long-lasting and consequential change is really tied up in community.”
You’ve written about the limits of memorialisation, citing Germany and the hostility towards pro-Palestine gatherings. Could you talk more about these limits?
Because Germany is so often looked at as an example, I think it’s important to understand what has gone wrong. Memory work has to be embedded and ongoing, but what’s happened here is that it was decided ‘ok we’re gonna remember the atrocities of the Third Reich, and then we’re done’. That’s translated as ‘you can’t be critical of Israel’. They banned events by [Jewish Berliners Against Violence in the Middle East], while the AfD [Germany’s far-right party] have had reasonably sizable protests.
It’s an approach to memorialisation that is primarily aesthetic? It memorialises this specific time in history on a superficial level, as opposed the doing it in a way that means values (like speaking up against another genocide) are upheld. There’s a contrast there for me because on the one hand I found the memorialisation I saw in Berlin very touching and enviable (compared to the UK)... But in the context of it shutting out pro-Palestinian speech, it’s not doing its job.
Yeah, I was recently back in Louisiana, where I’m from, and I saw how a lot of plantations are still there… There’s still that sense of the ‘lost cause’ narrative. It was really shocking. So the monuments remembering the holocaust are impressive, and it’s good that they’re there. But the process needs to be embedded and ongoing.
You shared this quote in your chapter contribution for the Prisons Memory Archive: “the institutionalisation of spaces for dissent and ongoing debate is essential to the participatory and inclusive function of democracy”. Are we particularly bad at that now?
It’s really tricky… have we gotten worse at it? Maybe. I always really struggle with social media. Sometimes it strikes me there’s not as many in-person spaces for this kind of ongoing debate. I don’t think it needs to be in person, because I know there’s plenty of reasons people need to interact online. But the kind of institutionalised dissent I’m writing about in that chapter really needs to be embedded and ongoing - you need to be in a real community with people.
How does change happen?
I think change happens through real community building. That means that change will happen slowly, and I know that with a lot of things we don’t have that luxury. But long-lasting and consequential change is really tied up in community. In one of the interviews you’ve done they talked about the Black Panthers and how they incorporated their breakfast programme and all this community stuff… That’s something I always admired. I wish there was more of it. The everyday things…
If I died today, left Everything Mixtape to you in my inheritance and you had to interview one last person - who would it be?
I think I’d interview Clint Smith. He’s written How The Word Is Passed. He writes about historical memory education.
What has inspired you lately?
Cheesy answer, but I think my mum! Growing up there was this real community focus and I see that in my mum. She really steps up for people around her when it’s needed, and people really step up for her. That’s how the community stuff really happens…