| Abstract | The need to examine the individual response to collective memory narratives has been continually emphasized in the nascent discipline of memory studies.This article examines the relationship between collective memory, power and resistance. In so doing, it seeks to establish a typology of mnemonic resistance, that is, to ascertain the modes by which collective memory may be resisted by the individual or a minoritarian, repressed group. The author contends that this resistance is two fold, dependent on both individual resignification, and the nature of collective memory itself, which, unwittingly, because of its necessarily nebulous character, the not inconsequential influence of both individual reception and generational change in its construction and reception, facilitates its own subversion. Collective memory, therefore, is always negotiated at the interface between the imposition of a public dominant narrative and the reaction of the private individual.
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