Keying the Past to the Present: Collective Memories and Continuity in Collective Identity Change

This article directs attention to a characteristic of collective identity that is often implied, but seldom studied: namely, its continuity through times of social movement change. While other studies have examined the conditions in which movements persist and/or endure over time, continuity is examined here as a shared sense of a consistent relation between the past and the present of the group. Drawing on ethnographic data collected from a Native American educational social movement, it examines how, through a process called collective memory associating, the continuity of a social movement's collective identity can be interactively established when elements of the identity are in flux. It is argued that the apparent continuity of a collective identity is interactively created as members key present collective identity elements to the past, and use the key to influence current collective identity development.