In this article, I argue for memory studies as the analysis of the culturalization and entextualization of meanings attributed to past experience. The data analysed here provide us with the opportunity to theorize about the three key processes underlying such culturalization and entextualization. First, it allows us to understand how meanings attributed to the past are moved from the intimate personal realm into the cultural realm, where they can become dominant. The analysis of this excerpt demonstrates that this process is gradual and unequal: while some people (the interviewer in this case) have already internalized dominant cultural meanings of the past, others (the interviewee in this case) are still struggling to entextualize those meanings. Second, the study of this transcript also allows us to understand how meanings of the past that are already culturally dominant are being re-actualized in face-to-face interaction. Finally, the excerpt also allows us to investigate memory studies as scholarly practice. Interpreting an interview interaction between a memory studies scholar and her participant can help us to gain insight in the research agendas and epistemologies memory studies as a field is prioritizing today.
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