The end into the beginning: Prolepsis and the reconstruction of the collective past

Prolepsis – or the narrative manoeuver consisting of narrating or evoking a future event in advance – is a concept borrowed from literary theory that has been used in Psychology for studying the contribution of culture and meaning to development. Cole applies the notion of prolepsis to upbringing insofar as parents’ imagined goals vis-à-vis their offspring guide their educational childrearing, thus channelling the child’s present towards the parents’ imagined future. This view coincides with cultural psychology in that humans are considered as future-oriented beings, constructing cultural tools that mediate the way we interpret the world and act within it. Drawing from this theoretical framework, this paper applies the notion of prolepsis to collective memory in order to examine how imagined futures are brought into the present by means of
particular ways of reconstructing the past, thus mobilizing collectives towards certain political goals. Along these lines, the narrative, pragmatic and normative dimensions of collective memory are discussed. The paper concludes with some reflections on the role of politics of imagination in promoting different ways of relating past, present and future.