4.17. Intergenerational transmission in diasporic, exiles and migratory contexts

The Darjeeling Hills have experienced demands for the formation of a separate administrative unit, Uttarakhand Pradesh, and Gorkhastan since the period of British India. Following India's independence, the political aspiration for a separate homeland among Indian Gorkhas has developed through three distinct phases: the first (1980-1988), the second (2007-2011), and the third (2017) phases of the Gorkhaland movement. Existing scholarship on the Gorkhaland movement has examined the socio-historical context of its development, discourses on Gorkha identity, and themes of class, gender, and ethnicity. Recent studies have also addressed issues of land and statehood demands. Despite this, there remains a gap in the literature concerning the intergenerational transmission of memory related to the Gorkhaland movement in the Darjeeling Hills. Portelli (1991) argues that memory is not merely a collection of facts but a meaningful process of interpretation. The significance lies not in preserving the past or establishing historical truth, but in the narrator's effort to make sense of the past and to shape their lives within a historical context (Portelli, 1991, p.52). The present study considers vernacular literature and testimonies, including Blood, Sweat and Gorkhaland (1986), Naang ra Maasu (1987), Faatsung (2019), 1986: Baas Haraye Pachi (2022), Chakraviewma Gorkha (2023), Mata ka ghar (2023), and Khaduwa Bandhuk (2025). The objective is to analyse literature as a medium for the intergenerational transmission of memory of the 1980s Gorkhaland movement in the Darjeeling Hills. The selected works are not part of the regional school curriculum but are widely read among the local population. Furthermore, the authors represent two generations who participated in or witnessed the movement. Through discourse analysis, this study examines how testimonies, subjective narratives, and the literary form and voice of the movement serve as significant sites for the intergenerational transmission and (re)interpretation of the Gorkhaland movement.

The ways in which memory is transferred at the individual, family and community levels have a significant impact on historical continuity and social memory. This study focuses on the descendants of Levantines who lived in Izmir, a Turkish city that has recently been striving to highlight its multicultural heritage. The term 'Levantines' refers to Latins from Europe who settled in Ottoman lands, particularly between the 15th and 19th centuries. They were involved in commercial, diplomatic and religious activities. As the population of the community continues to decline, the sense of belonging established by those who are still alive is quite significant, as it indicates what has been and will be passed down from the past to the present and future. This research presents an analysis of data collected through oral history and semi-structured in-depth interviews with twenty individuals of different ages, genders and backgrounds, including those of Italian, German, French and English origin. Due to variability in shared experiences over time and in the context of social history, generation is defined by shared urban spaces and experiences mentioned in the narratives rather than by family ties. Therefore, the coping strategies developed in relation to living as a minority group have varied across different generations. The narratives reveal the simultaneous emergence of the effects of the city's spatial and social changes, highlighting the transformation of cultural repertoire between generations, and reveal the rise of nostalgia and efforts to preserve cultural heritage.

Abstract This paper investigates the intergenerational transmission of memory within the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in Melbourne, examining diasporic homes as key educational and cultural spaces where collective identity is negotiated, disrupted, and reimagined. Drawing on 44 qualitative interviews with first-generation migrants, the study explores how memories of homeland are transmitted through storytelling, symbolic practices, and material culture, and how these narratives are interpreted and reconfigured by second-generation members of the diaspora. Findings reveal a complex interplay between cultural loss and creative continuity. While many participants expressed a sense of rupture and emotional distance between generations, others demonstrated how postmemory fosters curiosity, affective engagement, and voluntary reconnection with ancestral heritage. These dynamics highlight that intergenerational memory transmission is not linear or guaranteed, but contingent upon sociocultural contexts and shaped by both trauma and resilience. By situating diasporic domestic spaces as sites of informal education and memory work, this paper contributes to the conference theme ‘Generations and Education’ by showing how institutional and non-institutional actors, families, community networks, and cultural practices, mediate collective memory formation. It offers insights into how diasporic communities sustain and reimagine cultural identity across generations, underscoring the transformative potential of postmemory as both a bridge and a site of negotiation.

This presentation centers on the Argentine Diaspora Oral History Archive, a collection that documents the experiences of members of the Argentine diasporic community living in South Florida, USA. While the archive currently includes more than fifteen interviews, this presentation will focus on a selected sample. A closer examination of these interviews reveals how individuals position their personal life narratives either in relation to, or in tension with, the broader historical framework of Argentina’s recent past, particularly the dark period of dictatorship and state terrorism. The testimonies bring to light the complexities of generational and familial memory, exposing the lingering violence of dictatorship, the crimes committed under state terrorism, and the silences that have been transmitted to younger generations. Furthermore, the interviews highlight the dynamic interplay between self, history, and the cultures of both origin and settlement, offering insight into how participants construct meaning from their life stories and articulate the need to preserve memory.

Our paper proposal responds to the conference questions “How does the intergenerational transmission of memory take place? How are intergenerational differences negotiated?” by examining three generations of German Argentinians with a long history of migrations and remigrations between Latin America and Europe, and by looking at various moments of social-political change, crisis, and even collapse that shaped the trajectories of the two interrelated families in our study. Based on life story interviews with second and third generation German Argentinians (born in the 1920s and 1950s, respectively), as well as diaries, letters, and family albums left behind by a first generation (born around 1900), we explore how periods of profound change are remembered (from post-1918 Europe to 1970s Argentina and beyond): moments in which members of each generation made choices in a century-long history of (re-)migrations. Our analysis focuses especially on the third generation as they read, re-visit, and re-interpret narratives of previous generations while telling their own life story and situating it in the ever-changing web of inherited stories and symbolic affinities among ancestors and descendants. How do they integrate difficult pasts—such as their parents’ membership in local Nazi organizations—into their construct of a family history? In our research, we draw on recent studies on family memory (see, for example, Slabáková Radmila Švaříčková (ed.): Family Memory: Practices, Transmission and Uses in a Global Perspective, Routledge: 2021), and add a bilingual, Spanish-German, transatlantic perspective by exploring the intergenerational processes of transmitting or questioning cultural values, notions of belonging, and social positions associated with the (re)construction of German-Argentinian identity in rural Argentina.