This section introduces key conceptual elements to understand the production of memory and disputes around it in societies affected by conflict. Three dimensions of the labours of memory are examined here: the sociopolitical, sociocultural, and psychosocial dimensions of memory work.

Sociopolitical dimension:  The social production of memory is a field in tension, which can either build and strengthen, or challenge and transform hierarchies, inequalities and social exclusions. Memory is also a field where social and political legitimacies, friendships, and enmities are woven.

If war polarizes memories, a historical memory project that seeks to be inclusive of plural voices goes in the opposite direction. But to do so requires asking why certain stories are excluded from national history, and why that history reinforces social and political inequalities and historical injustices.

Differences of gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other differences shape both the way violence is experienced and the way it is remembered. Beyond the juridical definition of who is or is not a victim, there are sociological, psychosocial, and historical factors to take into account when efforts are made to integrate the voices of survivors in the documentation of the war.

Victims are not defeated and passive subjects, but rather social and political right-bearing agents in conflict situations who may be involved in social processes and the reconstruction of the community.  Mass violence, war, or living under a regime of terror often places ordinary people in critical life and death situations.  As they face difficult moral choices some may find themselves at times as victims of violence and at other times as perpetrators of violence or abuse.

Sociocultural dimension: In historical memory work, memory is understood as a tool with which individuals and societies construct a sense of the past.  Oral sources, narratives, and performances of memory serve at the same time as object (focus of study) and source for the construction of historical narrative.  Memory, the dynamic processes and related practices of remembering and forgetting, constitutes the core element in the methodological approach proposed in this resource material.

Remembering is not an act of reproduction, but rather of construction. This points us to the horizon of the functions of memory in individual and social life, and to the ways in which both remembering and forgetting, the two complementary operations and practices of memory, fulfill certain roles and are used by individuals and societies with and for certain purposes. In considering memory as a source for historical reconstructions, the meaning that people give to the past is considered an element of the work of history making and truth telling

Psychosocial dimension: Historical memory reconstruction projects can have a major impact on the psychosocial wellbeing of the people involved in them. These impacts can be positive, but these projects may also give rise to situations and conflicts which, if not properly cared for, can lead to the deepening of feelings and relationships that are harmful for victims.

Memory reconstruction processes are exercises that help both society and the victims. They help society to undertake searches for justice, and thereby contribute to the changes that are required for reconstructing and democratizing the social order(s).

For victims/survivors themselves these exercises can be of great emotional and spiritual value.  They can serve for the elaboration, understanding, socialization and validation of their experience in ways that can help to free them from the harmful effects produced by feelings of guilt.

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