Remembering as Social Practice

This work represents the development of two lines of interest, one in the study of social practices of remembering and the other concerning issues of identity in the care of people with profound learning difficulties. We examine of the way life story work is used as a resource in providing for continuities in the experience of people with profound learning difficulties when moved from hospital to community based care. Our concern is the way carers attend to issues of identity in their relationships with people who are unable to speak on their own behalf. We discuss how identities are accomplished as part of the social practice of remembering in the construction of life story books designed to resource continuities of identities across changes in the provision of care. Identities are not examined in terms of some subjective representation of coherence across time and space. We examine the way social organisation of remembering in life story work makes visible identities in terms of continuities of participation in the social practices that make up the conditions of living of the recipients of care and the working practices of those who provide it.