Family memory, gratitude and social bonds

Memory is not only that exquisitely suggestive and secret dimension, the basis of one’s identity, with which we are intimately familiar. It is also a cultural product in the proper sense, which takes form, becomes structured and changes with time and in social space. Both remembering and forgetting can be considered social actions in the proper sense, enacted on the basis of mechanisms of selection which at one and the same time make it possible to mold a given representation of the past and to transform it into an essential tool of belonging and of identity. Like memory, also gratitude (as Simmel highlighted) can be considered, from a sociological point of view, an instrument of cohesion and continuity of social life. The aim of the chapter is to analyze the characteristics and potential of collective memory and gratitude thus viewed, through the empirical data of research into young people’s attitudes towards work in southern Italy.