Memory Work: Exploring Family Life and

Expanding the Scope of Family Research

Karin Widerberg*

MEMORIES WE UVE BY

In most cultures remembrance is cultivated both individually and collectively. In families we

tell and retell family memories to knit us together, to help us negotiate and shape the aims and
functioning of our family unit. And we are surrounded by institutions that tell and retell the
memories of the community, with a similar aim: to knit us together, to make us participate in
the well-functioning of our society. Films, books and art, but also urban and rural planning,
are created to make us remember, not only our own history but also the histories of other
generations and groups. Memories and remembering are accordingly about identity-about
who we are as individuals, as a family and as a society-and as such, of course, they constitute
a highly contested area. We know that experiences and memories of oppression, violence
and sexual assaults are made to be forgotten in the family as well as in society. The issue of
whose memories and what kind of memories should be highlighted is therefore a battieground
in both research and politics. Embracing memories as a means to discuss continuity and
change of and within the fatnily institution is therefore asking for trouble. The fact that the
tool, the memory, is a construction and as such a subject for social investigation in its own
right before being made use of as a means to investigate continuity and social change, does
not make the task any easier. In this article I will argue that there are ways of working with
memories-using memory work as an example that presents an altemative to the narrative
tum and its dilemmas, producing not only other memories but maybe also other outiines of
individual and collective identities.

MEMORIES WE TELL

Within social science research memories are used to substantiate an experience (or set of
experiences), to pin it down descriptively so as to make the retold experience as contextually
rich as possible. The aim is to make us all-research subject, researcher and reader-to engage
with the experience anew. Memories are "collected" or "gathered" on specific themes or as a
part of a life-story/(auto-)biography, through interviews, written texts, diaries and documents
in which visual means (photo, film) too may serve as triggers. And each theme and approach
has its own challenges and merits regarding knowledge claims. Yet there are of course also
some challenges that are shared, affecting knowledge claims that not only call for our attention
but also for the exploration of other approaches, such as memory work.

'Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Box 1096 Blindem, 0317 Oslo,
Norway.
330 Journal of Comparative Family Studies

As Freeman (1993) has pointed out, we live our lives in episodes. The overall plot of the life
history that makes up of all these episodes is something we cannot know until afterwards.
Remembering is therefore not only a recounting of the past, but also a reinterpretation. It is
an interpretative act that aims to expand our understanding of the I. Through memory, a new
relation between the past and the present is created, one that can give structure to past and
present experiences. Memories from the past are therefore not memories of facts, but memories
of how we imagine and construct facts.

Further, what we remember is dependent on language and on culture. Now that we are adults,
language plays such a decisive part in the formation of an experience that we find it hard to
remember anything from our pre-verbal childhood. Language thus both enlightens and
darkens an experience. Culture, on the other hand, is decisive to what is considered important
and accordingly what we remember. That is why what is remembered will vary with culture
and historical period. People from different cultures who share the 'same' experience may
well remember it quite differently. The same is true for different groups within a culture.
Oppressed groups, for example, often do not want to or even cannot remember. This has
been interpreted (Taylor, 1993) as an expression of resistance towards the submission or
oppression pervading their experiences and their memories of these. In order to survive and
regain dignity they learn to forget. And if, and when, they do remember, the unbearable
makes the memories incoherent and fragmentary. This unwillingness to remember and the
way one remembers, if forced to, is highlighted in the literature on sexual assault, for example.

To remember, finally, especially in writing, is not only to gain something-for better and for
worse. It is also to lose something. Once the memories are written down, it is hard to remember
anything but what has been written. Likewise, what we tend to recall of visual impressions of
childhood is very much determined by the photos in the family album. In a way, the text or
picture locks or fixes the memory, and thereby perhaps also future experiences-registered,
reflected and remembered in the light of what we have of memories of our past.

These brief comrhents on some aspects of the memory process constitute, I believe, an
argument for developing methods to unfold memories other than those that culture compels
us to tell and also to live by. And here let me present and illustrate one such method, memory
work.

MEMORY AS WORK, MEMORY-WORK

AS A COLLECTIVE OR INDIVIDUALENTERPRISE

Memory work was developed as a collective method by the sociologist Frigga Haug (Haug,
1987). The aim was to develop a method that would facilitate the problematization of the
things we take for granted, especially gender, since it is exactiy this taken-for-grantedness
that contributes to making patriarchy invisible and difficult to change. But the aim was also
to develop a non-positivistic research method where the division and hierarchy between
researcher and research subjects were eliminated. Formulated as a feminist research method,
and aiming at empowerment and liberation in both its process and results, the collective
approach was underlined. Briefly, the procedures of the method were as follows.

A group of women were to decide the theme for the memory work. Once the theme was
settled, different kinds of "triggers," for example photos, could be used to get the memory
 Memory Work 331

process started. The stories were to be written as concretely and as detailed' as possible,,
preferably about a specific event or situation. To facilitate an: observing gaze and the
production of detailed accounts, the use of the form of the third person was proposed when
writing the story. All the stories were then to be read and analysed as if the author were dead
(Roland Barthes' famous term), so that no one would own the (true) interpretations. Further,
the aim was not to look for personal explanations btit rather to'look for social explanations
(social relations and pattems) of what the stories could teach us about the doings of gender.
To make the gender of the story visible so as to further, our understanding of how gender is
done, the male character in the story could be exchanged with a female, and vice versa. After
a preliininary analysis, the stories could be rewritten, ornew ones written, so as to get as rich
and varied a picture as possible: . ,'1

Haug and her fellow sisters explored and developed the method when trying to problematize
the sexualization of the female body as a theme.(Haug, 1987.); Since then,.the method has
been used and explored with a variety of themes but also in a variety of different ways (see
for example Kaufman et al., (2008) for a presentation of the field).

I myself have been iiiterested'in explorihg.the method also as an individual approach..Similar

approaches and techniques to those described^ above have then been used and adapted.
The reasons behind this use and development of memory work were at first quite pragmatic
I needed to find out about my own experiences on a theme before embarking on a research
project, or I would not.at that:time get co-researchers to commit to a memory work project.
Later, I found:that; writing memory stories over a longer period not only prodiiced more in-
dèptK material'on the theme in question;,but also brought forth.quite varied experiences:.
That is, I foundlhad'had many/more but also quite different kinds of experiences than J was
aware of whenlistarted out: And since each story was written, on. its own and in its own
voice, the result was a.picture of an "I," quite different from the "I" thatil had used with more
traditional' biographical- and' autobiographical' methods. Accordingly^ as I have argued
elsewhere (Widerberg, 1999),.memory work as an individual:approach,.shpuld also be used
to 'develop biographical' and autobiographical methods and traditions:.

In a variety of research projects (on sexualhaiassment; on the gender of knowledge,.on:the

sociality of tiredness), as a pilot:project; as-a part of a project oras aprojëct inàtself, different
varieties of the techniques have been explored so as to funher the knowledge produced (see
for example Brantsaeter and Widerbet:g, 1992; Widerberg,.1995;[J]leaasandiWiderbeig; 2001),
generating also meta^theoretical books andiarticles (Widerberg. 1995; 1998, 1999,2001a,
2001b, 2002; 2008) in which my own variant of the approach is discussedi.lh this process,
new research, themes have grown out of previous-themes,.or have been read into-material'
produced for other, purposes, in the dialectical, process between'the development of the
approach.and the themes under investigation. Letme illustrate.

When doing memory work for a book on gender and knowledge (Widerberg, 1995), I wrote
the stories of the family homes of my best friends at school, ihclliding a story of my own
family home. While writing these stories, I was struck by how it all came back to me, things
I thought I had long forgotten. And.how-through the use of a few techniques (presented in.
Widerberg, 1995)-I could recall details of fumishingsandleven smells,.By.knocking on:the
dbor or ringing the bell, I positioned myself on the doorstep ready to be letühiAndiby, using
332 Journal of Comparative Family Studies

the form of the third person when wridng, a distance was created that facilitated the gaze of
an observer. The stories aroused my interest in all the other homes I had visited and found
important as a child and youth. I soon found that focusing on the home rather than the fatnily
offered a different view and so different knowledge.

First of all, from a child's perspective, one visits another person, most often another child (or
several children/people). And the content of this visit-what takes place-is formed by the
contextual space of the social relations and also of the material (textural) objects and
conditions. Accordingly, the family is most often not the aim of the visit even though its
presence might be impossible to ignore.

Secondly, I experienced that focusing on the home opened the field of enquiry to include
material aspects that made me remember details that in turn furthered the memory process.
This is a well-known technique among flcdon writers, as well as within other disciplines
(anthropology, ethnology and so forth). Within sociology, however, the tradition has been
to focus more on the social relations than on the material space of their context. The wish to
be able to generalize about roles (for example, gender roles) and insdtudons (for example, the
family) and so forth has made us sociologists abstract at the expense of concretizing. Placing
roles and institutions in a material context and exploring this space so as to get a richer and
more varied, but also partly different, picture of, for example, the family is today fortunately
being proposed by other sociologists too (see for example Chapman and Hockey, 1999;
Hecht, 2001 ; Miller, 1998,2001; Morgan, 1996; Silva, 1999).

All this made me start to write down memory stories of all the homes that in one way or
another had been important to me. And the picture thus produced was made into a challenge
of the views on socialization within family research (Widerberg, 2010). Within socialization
theory, we learn about the role of the family in the forming of gender and class identity. But
does this view from above-from the view of the parents, from sociological theory, but also
from an institutional perspecdve-really tell us how it looks from below, from the perspective
of the child? Using written memory stories and taking the perspecdve of the child, the door
was opened to other important sites for learning acts of gender, class and ethnicity. In my
árdele (Widerberg, 2010) I argued that the role of the family in shaping the self is an empirical
question, and, as such, not only a person's own family but also other families and homes
would have to be included in the picture of the learning of the doings of gender and class.
Invesdgadng the role of the homes of others in reladon to issues of the doings of socialization
will, I argue, open up not only a new arena for family research, but probably also transform its
knowledge.

Fatherhood: An Illustration of Memory-work as an Individual Enterprise

In several of my memory stories of other people's homes, the father played a small but quite
significant role. Let me start with two stories to illustrate the point, discussed below.

At Kathy's

Kathy is a new friend. We both have family names starting with a W and were accordingly
seated next to each other at the very back of the classroom when starting secondary school
 Memory Work 333
the year before. Kathy is good-looking, feminine and charming but she is also bright, especially
in mathematics. This particular evening I am on my way to her house to get some help with
the math. I have phoned her beforehand, having learnt early on that this is not a place where
you show up unannounced. Kathy lives in a modem semi-detached house. Also the interior
decoration is modem, sparse and smart. No curtains, no ornaments, white walls and light
coloured fumiture. A designer's house, the proper house of Kathy's father, a designer of
commercial goods. He works at home in a big room adjoining the living room. The wall is
open between these two rooms and since one has to pass through the living room to get to
the other rooms of the house, including Kathy's, he has full control of what goes on in the
house. He is easily disturbed, often irritated and demanding. Sitting at his desk he calls out
orders of different kinds: "get me a coffee!," "bring me the papers!," "go and get the mail!."
The issue is therefore not to get his attention.

I park my bike next to Kathy's, taking care to do it properly so as not to give cause to any
complaints. I catch my breath and stand quite still for a few seconds before ringing the
doorbell. Not a sound. I press the button and the shrill sound makes me jumpy. Within a
couple of seconds Kathy opens the door. She smiles, says "hi" in a low voice and pats my
arm. So, he is obviously at home. I take my shoes off and put them neatly in the row on the
floor. Kathy waits for me and neither of us says a word. In our socks we tiptoe along the
corridor running next to the kitchen, heading for the living room. The lights are on also in her
fathers working rooni. I make sure not to look in his direction. Closing the door to Kathy's
room behind us, I finally let out my breath and we both smile and start to giggle quietly.
During my two hours there we are both very quiet and do not leave the room. When it is time
for me to leave, Kathy wants to come along. Passing through the living room I cannot avoid
looking at her father's desk, just opposite me. He is not there!

We put on our shoes and Kathy calls out "I'll accompany Karin, I'm back in fifteen minutes."
No answer. We wait a couple of seconds, for reactions, before opening the front door and
slipping out into the fresh evening air. I unlock my bike and we walk next to each other, at first
just talking quietly. Tuming the comer however we let ourselves loose. We laugh and even
shout, make dance steps, jump around and behave unrestricted, like drunkards. Outside
home Kathy is quite wild, especially at parties, and that is what I like about her.

At Louise's

We are best friends, Louise and I. We are 10, we sit next to each other in class and after school
we go to her place. They live in a modem single storey villa with a workroom and brand new
set of garden toys, including a swing and a trapeze, in the garden. Louise's father is a
manager and often sits at his desk in the enormous living room, a room where we never are
nor are expected to be. The telephone of the house is placed at his desk and it is only to
phone home or take a call from home that I enter the room. And it is mostly then and there I
meet him. He has, I have been told, good looks. And he is firm but jocular. But I never know
when he is "just" joking or when he is actually irritated or angry, so I am scared of him. 1
therefore hesitate to use the phone, postponing it until it cannot be avoided any longer. And
this is such an occasion.
334 Journal of Comparative Family Studies

I linger in.the^doorway. My heart beats fast and its sound fill my ears. My hands are sweaty,
riook across the:room to the desk where Louise's father is looming. He is reading some
papers and does not look up..Idear my throat,,to make.a small sound,.to notify him of my
presence. He still does not look up. I take a few steps forward; the floor creeks but stiir he
does not lookup.,I continue walking, the floor is vast like an ocean, all the time watching hihi
and waitihg for him to take notice of me. Does he really tiot hear me approaching? I reach his
desk and then finally he looks up and looks at me severely. "Excuse me; but could Luse the
phone...to phone home?," I;ask, having prepared my sentence thoroughly so as to put the
question correct and politely.. If not, he would set me right, something Ihave humiliating;
experiences of. He,nodsbnskly:,But just when'I lift the receiver from the hook, hesays;
"Have you washed your hands?"

I do not remember how, I answered or what happened next. What I do remember, however, is
my strong,emotional response-of fear and shame: Maybe I got so terrified that my mind;
actually went blank there and.then, eliminating any memory of what actually happened next.
Hemighthave laughed,.making;it all into a joke or.Imighthave replaced the receiver to go
and wash my hands: I really cannot,remember what.took place after his question. But,I do-
remember that afterwardsl.always washed directly before asking to use to, the phone:

In the more than twenty stories of other people's homes that Ihave written, the figure of the
father looms in the background: The stories are memories of homes I visited and not of the
father figure as such: And although^the father's role seemed quite small-ih'the sense of how
often and how intimate the encounters were-itdefihitively seems significant..Reading the
stories anew to grasp this father figure, I was particularly stmck by the: presence of his
absence. In-quite a few stories I never-or very rarely-mef the father,, although these were
homes T visited regularly for many years. And yet, the father was often used as a threat, by
friends or, their, mothers; he might be at home just not visible to us-in the celler, the study, the
garden.. .,,heniight come home; he might be sent for^hemiight be told, andthen!?. Since this
threat was rarely carried;out;,it;took on analmost mystic proportion, making it very usefulas
a threat. And at did colour the whole atmosphere of the house inquestion,, something the
Norwegian, writer Khausgârd is known; for having made an explicit theme ihi his
autobiographical volumes "My. struggle!' (Knausgârd,, 2009,, 2010)., Atmosphere,and'the
presence of absences, made visible through memory work on other people's homes, seems
accordingly to be an area to explore in future research investigating changes, in the father
role over thelast decades. Would this also be the case if the theme of the memory work was
more directiy fatherhood on would other themes and areas take its place? To find that out I-
organized a collective memory; workshop ata conference on "Men?s Families" (Copenhagen
1994).,

.. .and as a Collective Enterprise;

A' halfrday. workshop organized with the aim of presenting the method'as well as illiihiinating
its fmitfulness through praxis^ obliged us to adapt guidelines for the writihgas welLas for the
analyzing of the memory stories.,First of all, I had decided on the theme beforehand; to save-
us time. And since I knew that writihg about one's own father would be a too demanding task
for an occasion like this, I had chosen,"My friend's fàtheif' as the topic.We were 15 researchers
in the group - aged between;3O-5O-and the majority were men: Since the conference-language'
 Memory Work 335
was English we decided to use English also when writing and analyzing the stories, although
only one of us had it as his mother tongue while the>rest of us were Scandinavians. To our
surprise, writing in a foreign language made the stories not only shorter-which might have
been expected^but also more concrete and cleai" cut. We were given 20 minutes to write:a
memory- story.along the general guidelines for the method, previously mentioned. All the
stories were then read aloud by me, while the participants were instmcted to take.analytical
notes.'Each storywas read'three times; as a'first person story, as a storyiby a woman and as
a story by a man. I just exchanged names. Hearing .each story told three times gave the
participants a chance'to get to know:the story and more time for reflections, particularly on
the doings ofjender and gendered language. Since we were short of time, we did not analyze
each story separately,:but took the.analyticaldiscussion.when.all.thestories;had:been.read.
This implied that an analysis of each story inithelight.ofällthe.other stories were favoured.
Let me giye;two examples here of the stories written,'beforecommentirig on our analysis.

I am visiting a friend after school.lt is sunmier, we^have been sitting in the garden, chatting.
Now we are inside, in the'living room. Itis darker and cooler than in.the garden. The garden
door is open. We are discussing whether her tom dress .can be mended or not. Her father
comes home from work,.a rather bald man in a grey suit. He passes through the room. He does
.not.say.hello to;us and he does notikiss her mother. I feel I should not be there when'he is
home, so I say good-bye and.leave.

I visited Herbert in his home across the street from mine. His father sat as usual in front of.the
television with one:of his legs on a chaiir. He has a limp since he lost one leg in the world war.
It seems that instead of hiding this fake:leg of his, it is kind of exhibited in the living room and
to meát'is functioning as the silent centre of the room. But my interest (disgust?) for his'leg
is only distant-he has never greeted or talked to me. Herbert :tells me about .his father's
phantom painsconnected to his lost leg. Though sitting silently by himself theiather is very
much controlling the family. i

Herbert and I walk up to the attic where Herbert is ordered ¡to feed the family pigeons and
clean out their cages. After a while Herbert's father comes up and shows us/me how to break
the neck of a pigeon.

Before^analyzing the stories,'Lasked for reactions to the writing process as such.-Followitig

issues were then ^mentioned;

the memories that emerged were indistinct orwague

.mere shadows of fathers
sadness, .there "were" so few fathers around
it was easy to write of a specific memory since there were so few occasions
one started to ¡remember things one had forgotten
it was funto write

Analyzing the stories we found that they were quite .different from oneianother regarding
length,ttone, scene, relations involved.and so forth. The variety was quite striking but so
were the similarities cuttitig across all these variations. Several memories were of the father
as a guardian; the one who always opened the front door, who came into the friend's room
336 Journal of Comparative Family Studies
and intermpted the play or who controlled the situation and conversation at the dinner table.
The fathers were also often pictured as "too much" of something; too kind, too dominating,
too sentimental or just silent or absent-mentally and physically. The stories all confirmed
that the issues I myself had found in my individual memory work on other people's homes,
presented above, were issues worthy of future investigation.

SUMMING LIP: A RESEARCH PROPOSAL EOR THE FUTURE

Memories of the presence of a father's absence is of course but one place to start an
investigation of changes of the role of the father or of fatherhood. But it is a place not
generated primarily through doxa or discourses but through working with memories
systematically so as to make things visible that otherwise most often are taken for granted.
I am not arguing that memory work can or should replace other approaches also making use
of memories, for example narratives in the form of life-histories and (auto-) biographies. But
I do argue that such an approach as memory-work should be used and explored in its own
right as well as a supplement that might inform and guide the design of a life history interview.
Through memory work on everyday situations, other issues and themes are made visible
than those we tell when asked about the story of our life. Exploring these themes has the
potential to offer other pictures of individual and collective identities, other, that is, than
those dominating in our cultures. An offer we cannot afford to refuse!

REFERENCES

Brantsaeter, M. and Widerberg, K. (Eds.) (1992). Sex i arbeid(et) fin Norwegian) (Sex at Work). Oslo:
Tiden forlag.
Chapman, T. and J. Hockey (Eds.) (1999). Ideal Homes? Social Change and Domestic Life. London:
Routledge.
Freeman, M. (1993). Rewriting the Self History, Memory, Narrative London: Routledge.
Haug, F. (Ed.) (1987). Female Sexualization: A Collective Work of Memory. London: Verso.
Hecht, A. (2001). "Home Sweet Home: Tangible Memories of an Uprooted Childhood." In D. Miller,
(Ed.) Home Possessions. Oxford: Berg.
Lilleaas, U-B. and Widerberg, K. (2OOl)..Tr0tthetens tid (in Norwegian). (The Times of Tiredness).
Oslo:Pax forlag.
Miller (Ed.) (2001). Home Possessions. Oxford: Berg.
Kaufman, J., M.S. Ewing, D. Montgomery and A. Hyle (Eds.) (2008). Dissecting the Mundane:
International Perspectives on Memory-work. Lanham: University Press of America, Inc.
Knausgârd, K.O. (2009). Min kamp (My Struggle). Bok 1. Oslo: Oktober.
Knausgârd, K.O. (2010). Min kamp (My Struggle). Bok 3. Oslo: Oktober.
Miller, D. (Ed.) (1998). Material Cultures: Why Some Things Matter. London: UCL Press.
Miller, D. (2001). Home Possessions. Oxford: Berg.
Morgan, D. (1996). Family Connections. Cambridge: Polity.
Silva, E.B. (1999). Transforming Housewifery: Practices, Dispositions and Technologies. In E.B. Silva
and C. Smart (Eds.) The New Family.? London: Sage.
 Memory Work 337
Taylor, C.A(1993). Positioning Subjects and Objects: Agency, Narration, Relationality. Hypatia, Vol.
8, No. 1, Winter.
Widerberg, K. (1995). Kunskapens kj0nn (The Gender of Knowledge) Oslo: Pax.
Widerberg, K. (1998). Teaching gender through writing "experience stories." Women's International
Forum, 21(2), 193-198.
Widerberg, K. (1999). Alternative methods-Alternative understandings: Exploring the social and the
multiple "I" through memory-work. Sosiologisk Tidskrift, 2, 147-159.
Widerberg, K. (2001 a). Introduction. From exercises to texts. In Widerberg, K., von der Fehr, D., Leira,
H. and Lilleaas, U-B. (Eds.) Doing body/texts: An explorative approach (pp. 1 -9). Oslo, NO: Department
of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo.
Widerberg, K. (2001b). Embodying intellectuality. In Widerberg, K., von der Fehr, D., Leira, H. and
Lilleaas, U-B. (Eds.), Doing body/texts: An explorative approach (pp. 10-34). Oslo, NO: Department
of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo.
Widerberg, K. (2002). Kvalitativ forskning i praktiken (in Swedish). (Qualitative Research in Practice)
Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Widerberg, K. (2008). For the Sake of Knowledge: Exploring Memory-work in Research and Teaching.
In Kaufman, J., Ewing, M.S., Montgomery, D. and Hyle, A. (Eds.) (2008). Dissecting the mundane:
International perspectives on memory-work. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc.
Widerberg, K (2010). In the Homes of Others: Exploring New Sites and Methods When Investigating
the Doings of Gender, Class and Ethnicity. Sociology 44(6).
Copyright of Journal of Comparative Family Studies is the property of Journal of Comparative Family Studies
and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright
holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.