By Iris Poelen
In October 2024, Dr. Justine Lloyd, Associate Professor in Sociology from Macquarie University in Sydney, visited me at RUNOMI and the department of Geography, Planning & Environment. The purpose of this visit was to ground our ongoing research collaborations, plant seeds for teaching collaborations between our departments and expand on student exchanges between our universities. Beyond the fruitful individual encounters Dr. Lloyd, myself and colleagues had on campus, she also inspired staff and students through two activities:
In a public seminar, Dr. Lloyd shared her work on ‘Sites of Conscience’, in which she explores the potential role of place-based memory, migration and storytelling in negotiating frameworks of inclusion. The term ‘Site of Conscience’ (SoC) refers to both members of an international network of historic sites and a particular set of place-based memory practices – specifically those that are directed towards engaging the public in ongoing injustices of place. This kind of awareness-raising aims to engage the public in repairing those injustices, by advancing understanding and reflection on associated contemporary issues, including the templates of historical racism that act in the present. SoCs are therefore part of a wider movement that embraces the idea of ‘memory’ as democratic, activist counterweight to ‘heritage’.
Dr. Lloyd introduced SoCs and their performances of ‘connective memory’ (Hoskins, 2011) as an alternative to collective memory. Collective memory assumes that the experiences of individuals, especially migrants as marginalised subjects, ‘stand in for’ and hold wider patterns of memory in place for the experiences of an entire group of people. Connective memory instead starts from individual experience to interpret social patterns and forces through dialogic meaning-making processes that metaphorically invoke other times and places. Through discussion of a podcast series (Radio Skid Row 2020) produced by the Sydney-based Addison Road Community Organisation, Dr. Lloyd explained how these pluralist storytelling practices may challenge conventional approaches to understanding national narratives of cohesion and integration. Such connective storytelling enhances understanding of the role of place in repairing injustice associated with historical racism and reshaping more just futures.
Dr. Lloyd’s seminar was followed by a guest lecture in the course ‘Urban & Cultural Geography’ of the Human Geography master, where she taught students about the links between migration flows and urbanisation, and about the framework of superdiversity and its use for understanding contemporary urban life. She also presented some of the critiques on superdiversity and ways to engage with those critiques to better understand contemporary forms of spatial and social inequalities.
To add a lighter touch to the research visit, I showed Dr. Lloyd around the city and its surroundings, where we could enjoy nature, local beers and pancakes, and where she could coincidentally demonstrate the relevance of ‘connective memory’ in place, as she stepped into the traces of her own family history in Huis Wylerberg – a place shaped by two World Wars and shifting borders – where her grandmother stayed about a century ago.
A cooperation to be continued, to keep our research and teaching collaborations going and strengthen the bonds between Radboud/RUNOMI and Macquarie! If you find yourself interested in Dr. Lloyd’s work, do not hesitate to contact me on iris.poelen@ru.nl and I will act as matchmaker.