132 Elizabeth Deligio
Decoloniality, as a critical lens, challenges assumptions that have
framed memory as the cognitive processing of an individual with a linear
temporality. By removing the assumptions of universality and ahistoricity,
we are now free to consider memory in context (a people in a place with a
history) and in plurality (more than one kind of memory).
MEMORY IN CONTEXT
As stated earlier, most of the recent research on memory frames the
processes of memory through a three-stage model. Memory is a cognitive
process in which sensory information from our physical environment
moves from sensory memory to short-term memory to long-term memory
and then back to short-term memory when it is needed (Griggs, 2017).
While this may be an accurate description of the physiological process of
the mind, it assumes a subject that is absented of a socio-political context,
histories, ancestral knowledge, and the identities that flow from each.
Take, for example, the interaction between memory and the history of a
place. The memories and history of that place may appear differently in
diverse communities based on one’s socio-political position in relationship
to the place as well as their own cultural and religious traditions. How the
descendants of indigenous peoples in the Americas remember the
processes of colonization and the establishment of a state will be different
than the memories of the descendants of European settlers. These
differences will occur across varying sites of memory from knowledges
inherited from ancestors, to historical records, and socio-cultural
significance. For the descendants of settlers, the Americas were founded;
for indigenous communities the Americas were stolen. These memories
may still move from sensory, to short-term memory, to long-term memory,
and back to short term, but the content of the memories themselves is very
different and requires context for understanding.
It is important then to consider not only how memory works but also
how it is made. In considering how memory is made, it is important to
widen the lens from a physiological process to a socio-political process