https://doi.org/10.1177/17506980211044709 Memory Studies 1–16 © The Author(s) 2021 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/17506980211044709 journals.sagepub.com/home/mss “Let me tell you what we already know”: Collective memory between culture and interaction Thomas Van de Putte University of Trento, Italy Abstract This article presents the results of a qualitative micro-study of a 3-minute conversation between a research participant and a researcher. The talk in the interaction concerns the past of the contemporary Polish town of Oświęcim, internationally better known as Auschwitz. Borrowing methods and concepts from interactional sociology and linguistic ethnography, the article demonstrates that people know different cultural narratives about the same past event and are able to move between those narratives when the interactional context requires them to. The combination of micro-discourse analysis with ethnographic detail provides an insight in the entanglement of general cultural meanings and specific interactional dynamics when people attribute meaning to the past. The findings and methodological framework presented in this article also engage in a dialogue with some fundamental critiques on the field of memory studies. These include, among others, the need to connect the micro, meso, and macro, and the individual with the social, and the urge to actively develop and think through methods in memory studies research. Keywords collective memory, culture, discourse analysis, Holocaust, interaction Introduction Despite memory studies’ undeniable success in terms of growth and impact, the field has been criti- cized from various angles. In this article, I single out two strands of critique that have informed the methodological and epistemological choices underlying its arguments and the research agenda it seeks to promote. First, memory studies has been criticized for having a lack of methodological discussion and specific memory methods. This critique has emerged around 20 years ago and has continuously been voiced until today. Wulf Kansteiner’s (2002) article Finding Meaning in Memory has insti- gated the debate. Following the “memory boom” of the 1980s and 1990s, Kansteiner (2002: 108) claimed that “. . . memory has clearly become a central concept in the humanities and social sci- ences, it remains unclear to what extent this convergence reflects actual common intellectual and methodological interests.” In a similar vein, Roediger and Wertsch (2008: 19) argue, in the very Corresponding author: Thomas Van de Putte, Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento, 38122 Trento, Italy. Email: Thomas.vandeputte@unitn.it 1044709MSS 0 0 10.1177/17506980211044709Memory StudiesVan de Putte research-article 2021 Standard Article