Ethnicity and memory

Ethnicity is the ultimate memory project. Memory and collective consciousness mesh with self-identification to shape a sense of belonging and affiliative membership within a real or imagined community. This communion becomes a lifelong project and constructs itself through varied cognitive and emotional interactions with memory. Memories are made and require the negotiation of shared histories through acts of remembrance. The nature of memory is contested in the literature, and it is variously treated as an individual and group project; shared yet deeply personal. For the purposes of this discussion I envision memory as the product of both individual and collective decision making around what is valued, recalled and actioned in the world today.