Telling family stories: transgenerational memory practices in the context of migration

Abstract

This paper focuses on interactions and educational processes in families with a migration history and the negotiation of their story around the experience of (flight) migration: Families find different ways to tell their story and thereby construct themselves as a family. In these processes of ‘doing family’, memory and remembrance play a significant role as biographical capital. This is especially the case in the context of migration where routines, occupations and language(s) are challenged or lost. This paper draws on an ethnography conducted in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. The ethnographic research focuses on small stories told in informal situations of participant observation. The paper explores intergenerational memory practices and asks how a family story can be told based on negotiations within the family as well as within a society that shapes the lives of the family members in a significant way.

Keywords: Family migration, small stories, intergenerational memory practices, linguistic ethnography, family biographies