combined curriculum or the opulence of a holiday camp cannot be guaranteed when they return to their “ real life ” 7 . Worse still , the contact itself between different social groups could end up reinforcing logics of social distinction and detachment 8 , which may occur if the teacher or another authority figure imposes a meeting between individuals belonging to unequal groups , without ensuring that these inequalities do not determine perceptions and are not expressed with contempt ( a task that is by no means easy ). The transmission of the violent past , in which victims and perpetrators both feature , can reinforce the assigned community identities that it is supposed to overcome .
* * *
Taking stock of memory policies today , in Europe and beyond , requires us to take seriously the complexity of the social appropriations of the past . Moreover it is important to avoid the danger of disconnecting the status of memory as a European value from its usefulness as a tool for promoting tolerance , inclusiveness , equality , emancipation . I would like to end with a final story ; A few years ago , I conducted an in-depth fieldwork among visitors of an exhibition on the history of Jewish children in Paris during the Occupation . All the visitors clearly linked this memory exhibition with the promotion of values such as tolerance and fight against racism , Anti- Semitism and discrimination . But at the end of the interviews I conducted with them , certain visitors expressed , of their own initiative , ethnic stereotypes that were themselves vectors of discrimination – even after stating at the beginning of the interview that their visit to the museum was to respect the duty of memory and fight against hatred and intolerance . One women interviewed as she came out of the exhibition talked at length about the fact that there were relatively few “ visitors of colour ” and “ from immigrant backgrounds ’’ among the exhibition-goers , a sign for her that these groups do not fully adhere to the Republic and its principles , and that they are “ not really French ”: “ we do not have the same history […] or the same values ” 9 . This brings us a full circle .
In this example , being confronted with memory policies was no longer seen as a vector of democratic values , but as a sign that those values are shared or not . It closes the group that it is supposed to open . Memory policies indeed have their “ experts ” and those who are ignorant but we must be careful that this distinction does not reinforce the dynamics of exclusion that these policies are supposed to combat .
7 Hammack , P . L . ( 2009 ). The cultural psychology of American-based coexistence programs for Israeli and Palestinian youth . In C . McGlynn , M . Zembylas , Z . Bekerman & T . Gallagher ( Eds .), Peace Education in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies : Comparative Perspectives . New York , NY : Palgrave Macmillan . 8 Oberti , M . & Preteceille , E . ( 2016 ). La ségrégation urbaine . Paris : La Découverte . 9 Sarah Gensburger , « Visiting History , Witnessing Memory . A study of a Holocaust Exhibition in Paris in 2012 », Memory Studies , 2019 , 12 ( 6 ), 630-645 .
EUROPE INSIGHT
47