| Abstract | This article is an attempt to develop a comprehensive framework to examine memory from a sociological perspective with a particular emphasis on the impersonal conventional collective, and nonnative aspects of the process of remembering. After discussing the social context of remembering as well as various traditions and rules of remembrance, the article examines the process of mnemonic socialization. It then moves on to identify various mnemonic communities (the family, the workplace, the ethnic group, the nation) as well as various social sites of memory (documents, stories, photograph albums, archaeological ruins, the calendar). Following a discussion of the way in which holidays allow mnemonic synchronization, the article ends by examining the politics of remembrance as manifested in various mnemonic battles over the social legacy of the past.
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