Networks of Frames and Memories: the Strategic Use of Memory in Social Movement Discourses

Twenty years after one of the most incisive event characterizing the Global Justice Movement in Italy, answering the call of the national network Genova 2021 "Voi la Malattia, Noi la Cura" ("You the Disease, We the Cure"), hundreds of activists met again in a public assembly in Genoa. In their speeches, references were made to the then still raging pandemic and to other crises of the past and present, from the economic recession to the climate emergency. Concurrently, the mnemonic element related to the 2001 eventful protest emerged as central in the discourse. The aim of our study is to shed light on how situated memory work regarding past mobilizations relates to social movements’ framing activity about the current situation. In particular, it extends the field of social movement studies by delving into the concept of mnemonic framing, while empirically exploring how memory is used strategically to bridge different frames. Focusing on the case of Genova 2021 assembly provides us with the possibility to study discursive mechanisms related to memory work and collective action framing, as well as their interrelation, in a particular moment for both processes: respectively, an important celebration as was the twentieth anniversary of the protests against the G8 summit in Genoa, and one of the first public gathering of Italian progressive actors since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. By combining an abductive qualitative analysis with the tools of network analysis, we explore the threefold relationship that connects social movements, memories of past mobilizations, and the challenges posed by the multiplicity of crises. Starting from the transcription of 55 speeches as the source of data, we developed a three-steps analytical strategy which allowed for the identification of (a) the socio-semantic network of actors and issues emerged during the assembly; (b) the content of framing activity in relation to memory performed by activists; and (c) how mnemonic frames, fulfilling different tasks (i.e., diagnosis, prognosis, motivation), are strategically adopted in relation to the emerged issues. In particular, we focus on this last analytical step by discussing the emerging bimodal graph resulting from the connection between mnemonic frames and issues. Preliminary results suggest that the memories of the 2001 event are not only explicated in reference to memory politics work (i.e., memory as the main issue framed), but also strategically employed by activists to framing processes oriented toward different issues, concerning present and future challenges imposed by the multiple crises in which they act. Furthermore, the application of a bipartite network approach allowed us to uncover the relevance of mnemonic frames in the mechanism of frame bridging.