Futures of Remembrance in the Post-Migrant Society: Conflicts, Continuities, and Contestations

How are histories of migration and the associated experiences of exclusion, marginalisation, and violence remembered in our society? What conflicts, continuities, and competing claims shape these debates? And what role do literature, music, and education play in shaping cultures of remembrance for the future?

The project analyses and reflects on current conflicts, continuities, and contestations within memory discourse in the post-migrant society. Literature, music, and educational settings such as schools are understood as key arenas in which contemporary processes of pluralisation within German memory discourse become visible and are negotiated. Through interconnected formats of analysis, reflection, and debate at Leuphana University and in the city of Lüneburg, these arenas are explored in collaboration with students and stakeholders from memory research and practice. The central question is how continuities of racism, antisemitism, and other experiences of violence can be addressed, and how different voices and perspectives can be taken into account in memory discourse.

Remembrance in the Post-Migrant Society

A society’s understanding of itself is shaped to a significant extent by how and which pasts it remembers, and by how these memories are linked to ideas about living together in the future. In post-migrant spaces and institutions, this process has become dynamic and characterised by tensions as perspectives on remembrance are pluralised through globalisation, transnational migration, and digitalisation. Conflicts over remembrance occur not only in the public sphere but also between partially competing public spheres. As struggles over how the public sphere is shaped, these conflicts raise questions about the visibility and recognition of different social groups and their historical experiences. Post-migrant social structures therefore affect processes of remembrance throughout society. The post-war history of the Federal Republic of Germany needs to be expanded to include (post-)migrant and transnational memories, while established understandings of cultures of remembrance must be critically reassessed.

Research Approach and Methodology

The project approaches the future of remembrance as a scholarly and practice-oriented debate that takes current dynamics in Germany as its starting point for developing perspectives on remembrance in the post-migrant society. Across three subprojects, the state of research on memory discourse in the post-migrant society is examined from the respective disciplinary perspectives of the project leads. Building on this work, literary, musical, and educational approaches to imagining future forms of remembrance are developed. Through a range of dialogue and reflection formats at Leuphana University and in Lüneburg, the perspectives developed in the subprojects are brought together, opening up the debate about the future to additional voices from academia, culture, and society.

Objectives and Knowledge Transfer into Practice

The project aims to advance interdisciplinary approaches to developing a culture of remembrance in the post-migrant society that remains open to change. To this end, different disciplinary perspectives and experiences from academia, culture, and educational practice are brought into dialogue. The project creates spaces for critically reflecting on established cultures of remembrance, bringing marginalised perspectives more fully into view, and discussing new approaches to a plural and inclusive culture of remembrance.

Funding, Project Leadership, and Duration

Funding: Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture (MWK) and the Zukunft.Niedersachsen funding programme

Project Leads: Prof. Kevin Drews (Leuphana University Lüneburg), Prof. Ellen Kollender (University of Cologne), Prof. Monika Schoop (Leuphana University Lüneburg)

Project Duration: 15 August 2025 – 14 April 2027