Forgetting and remembering in the margins: Constructing past and future in the Romanian Danube Delta KRISTOF VAN ASSCHE, Minnesota State Universities – St Cloud State, USA PATRICK DEVLIEGER, University of Leuven, Belgium PETRUTA TEAMPAU, Babes-Bolyai University, Romania GERT VERSCHRAEGEN, University of Leuven, Belgium Abstract This article investigates the process of social forgetting by relating it to the disintegration of social and spatial networks. Looking at the case of Sulina, a small town on the eastern edge of the Romanian Danube Delta, we analyze how the unraveling of networks caused a process of social forgetting with margin-specific features, a fundamental restructuring of social memory and social identities. An important focus of our investigation is the connection between social memory and spatial planning, as a coordinated effort to look forwards. While forgetting as such is seen as a positive process, constitutive of memory, its local characteristics can create problems, for example, for cooperation and planning. Theoretically, this article adopts a systems theoretical framework, incorporating notions derived from anthropology and geography. Social memory is defined as a continuous process of selection, carried out in various specialized subsystems. Concepts of social identity and network are found to be essential in a localized analysis of social memory. Concluding, we argue that local characteristics of social memory can impede the articulation of viable spatial planning strategies. Key words social forgetting; social memory; social systems theory; spatial planning Forgotten by the world and forgetting the world. (Jan Morris, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, 2001) Forgetting is a crucial condition of remembering. Only by forgetting most of the past, by discarding and conflating previous experiences, can we orient ourselves to the © The Author(s), 2009. Reprints and permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav MEMORY STUDIES, 1750-6980, Vol 2(2): 211–234 [DOI: 10.1177/1750698008102053] http://mss.sagepub.com