Gradhiva N°8 : Memory of slavery in Benin

Description

"Since the work of Maurice Halbwachs, we know that collective memory must be considered as the product of selection and forgetting. Today, in Benin, the memory of slavery passes through official commemorative speeches, oral narratives and popular ritual practices. If, on the one hand, the tone seems consensual, on the other hand, we witness a fluctuating and selective work on memory. Popular cults and cultures thus contribute to the social construction of a politically "sensitive" past and to the emergence of new forms of relationship to History. This dossier addresses the ambivalent aspects of the legacy of slavery in Benin, its material, symbolic and religious traces."