“I kept it,so it wouldn’t vanish with me”: Audio letters as ambivalent sites of conflicting memory

Abstract

This article explores how memories traverse places, generations, and temporalities, especially within contexts of migration. Focusing on analog audio letters as a medium of migrant communication in the 1980s, the article draws on recordings and recently conducted biographical-narrative interview with a migrant woman from Turkey living in Austria. These letters, embedded in vernacular family archives, reveal the ambivalence of memory as both a connective and disruptive force. While recording and listening to one’s voice fosters affective communication, these interactions often evoke complex emotions, highlighting unresolved family conflicts and the enduring presence of melancholia. This article explores how memories, revisited years later, are fluid and shaped by evolving perspectives, reflecting the heterogeneity of personal and collective histories. By analyzing both a biographical-narrative interview and the dual role of audio letters—as reminders of painful family dynamics and enduring emotional bonds—this article offers a nuanced understanding of memory’s transformations in transmedian spaces shaped by migration.