Abstract

The contributors to this special issue have set out to analyse and investigate the psychological, biological, and social conditions of body memories and their impact on the constitution of collective memories. In contrast to episodic or semantic recollections, body memories such as habits shape the movements, postures, and gestures of the entire body. They are generated by repeated social interactions and thus incorporate cultural norms, values, and styles of expression. It is the goal of this special issue to explore the various dimensions of this memory type from a range of disciplinary perspectives and to elucidate how body memories are formed by learning processes, social rituals, but also by painful or traumatic experiences. In what follows, we introduce some key characteristics of body memory and explain their relations to existing debates and research paradigms in the theory of embodiment. Finally, we summarize the various contributions of this issue and the research questions they address.