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9/11 Digitally Remastered? Internet Archives, Vernacular Memories and WhereWereYou.org

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2011

LEE JARVIS
LEE JARVIS
Affiliation:
Department of Political and Cultural Studies, Swansea University. Email: l.jarvis@swansea.ac.uk.
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Abstract

This article explores competing efforts to make sense of the 9/11 attacks within entries posted on the “Where Were You … September 11th, Two Thousand One” Internet archive. Open to written contributions for one year from 15 September 2001, the archive amassed more than 2,500 responses, with posters writing from over twenty different countries. The article begins by arguing that this repository of vernacular memories has potential to significantly broaden our understanding of how the events of 9/11 were interpreted beyond the dominant discourses of political and other elites. It then attempts to do this via a discursive analysis of three key themes traversing contributions to WhereWereYou. These relate, first, to efforts to position 9/11 within particular temporal horizons; second, to accounts of 9/11's essence and causes; and third, to articulated hopes, fears, and expectations around the attacks' future impacts. The article concludes by locating WhereWereYou within debates over the archive's status in contemporary social and political life. It argues that this specific archive's refusal to foreclose 9/11's meaning renders WhereWereYou a particularly interesting memory project for exploring the events of 11 September 2001, and for thinking through contemporary mnemonic practices more broadly.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 4: 10 Years After 9/11 , November 2011 , pp. 793 - 814
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

1 For example, Klein, Kerwin Lee, “On the Emergence of Memory in Historical Discourse,” Representations, 69 (2000), 127–150CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, 2nd edn (London: Verso, 2003); Berliner, David, “The Abuses of Memory: Reflections on the Memory Boom in Anthropology,” Anthropological Quarterly, 78, 1 (2005), 197–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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4 This article employs this shorthand notation of the events of 11 September 2001 throughout. To preface themes returned to below, we should note that the shorthand itself presents a metonymic, and particular, reading of those events' historical location. See Jacques Derrida and Giovanna Borradori, “Autoimmunity: Real and Symbolic Suicides – A Dialogue with Jacques Derrida,” in Giovanna Borradori, ed., Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida (London: The University of Chicago Press, 2003), 85–136.

5 For example, John Collins and Ross Glover, eds., Collateral Language: A User's Guide to America's New War (New York: New York University Press, 2002); Sandra Silberstein, War of Words: Language, Politics and 9/11 (London: Routledge, 2002); Richard Jackson, Writing the War on Terrorism: Language, Politics and Counter-terrorism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005); Stuart Croft, Culture, Crisis and America's War on Terror (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); David Simpson, 9/11: The Culture of Commemoration (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006); David Holloway, Cultures of the War on Terror: Empire, Ideology, and the Remaking of 9/11 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008); Lee Jarvis, Times of Terror: Discourse, Temporality and the War on Terror (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009); Matthew J. Morgan, ed., The Impact of 9/11 on the Media, Arts and Entertainment: The Day That Changed Everything? (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009).

6 Gunning, Jeroen, “, Government and Opposition, 42, 3 (2007), 363–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jackson, Richard, “The Core Commitments of Critical Terrorism Studies,” European Political Science, 6, 3 (2007), 244–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Richard Jackson, Marie Breen Smyth and Jeroen Gunning, eds., Critical Terrorism Studies: A New Research Agenda (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009); Jarvis, Lee, “The Spaces and Faces of Critical Terrorism Studies,” Security Dialogue, 40, 1 (2009), 5–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Heath-Kelly, Charlotte, “Critical Terrorism Studies, Critical Theory, and the ‘Naturalistic Fallacy’,” Security Dialogue, 41, 3 (2010), 235–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Wagner-Pacifici, Robin, “Memories in the Making: The Shapes of Things that Went,” Qualitative Sociology, 19, 3 (1996), 301–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 301.

8 “Where Were You … September 11th, Two Thousand And One,” “About” page, available at http://www.wherewereyou.org/about, last accessed 10 Oct. 2010.

9 “Where Were You … September 11th, Two Thousand And One,” “Welcome” page, available at http://www.wherewereyou.org, last accessed 10 Oct. 2010.

10 Ibid.

11 The tension between nationalism and cosmopolitanism evident already in this preamble is returned to in further detail below.

12 The most complete overview of dominant representations of 9/11 remains Jackson, Writing the War on Terrorism. In this, Jackson traces the emergence and ubiquity of a very particular reading of the attacks as an exceptional tragedy and act of war that originated within the George W. Bush administration. This reading was consolidated by its widespread reproduction throughout mainstream media outlets, scholarship, think tanks, religious discussion, and popular culture; see 153–79.

13 For an exception see Hess, Aaron, “In Digital Remembrance: Vernacular Memory and the Rhetorical Construction of Web Memorials,” Media, Culture & Society, 29, 5 (2007), 812–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 (London: Longman, 1980), 82. I refer here to the second account of subjugated knowledges offered by Foucault in this piece: “a whole set of knowledges that have been disqualified as inadequate to their task, or insufficiently elaborated; naïve knowledges, located low down on the hierarchy, beneath the required level of cognition or scientificity.”

15 George Lipsitz, “Myth, History and Counter-memory,” in Adam J. Sorkin, ed., Politics and the Muse: Studies in the Politics of Recent American Fiction (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Press, 1989), 161–78, 162.

16 WhereWereYou was not, of course, the only space in which alternative or counterreadings of 9/11 and the subsequent “war on terror” surfaced. For additional examples within the mainstream media and popular culture see, for instance Spigel, Lynn, “Entertainment Wars: Television Culture after 9/11,” American Quarterly, 56, 2 (2004), 235–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dittmer, Jason, “Captain America's Empire: Reflections on Identity, Popular Culture, and Post-9/11 Geopolitics,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 95, 3 (2005), 626–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dodds, Klaus, “Steve Bell's Eye: Cartoons, Geopolitics and the Visualization of the ‘War on Terror’,” Security Dialogue, 38, 2 (2007), 157–177CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Hess.

18 The arguments in this article draw on a sample of this archive's first two hundred and sixty entries. This constitutes 10% of WhereWereYou's total content, and enables an engagement with public responses to 9/11 posted over a two-month period from the attacks' occurrence. The sample was selected to provide a sufficient corpus through which to demonstrate the contestation that took place over 9/11's meaning and importance even amid the attacks' immediate aftermath and first major response: the October 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan. In the discussion that follows, I cite from these entries directly, reproducing any typographical or other errors therein.

19 George Bush, “Remarks by the President upon Arrival, The South Lawn,” available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010917–3.html, last accessed 11 Sept. 2003.

20 The Not In Our Name movement was an active opponent of the global war on terror between March 2002 and March 2008. See http://www.notinourname.net, last accessed 1 Dec. 2010.

21 Earlier controversies surrounding 9/11's commemoration included debates over the ordering of names on the Ground Zero memorial and discussion over the appropriate uses of the Ground Zero site. Jarvis, See Lee, “Remember, Remember, 11 September: Memorializing 9/11 on the Internet,” Journal of War & Culture Studies, 3, 1 (2009), 69–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar. At the time of writing, controversy continues to surround plans for the construction of an Islamic community centre in the vicinity of the Ground Zero site. This controversy was recently reignited with the threat and subsequent burning of the Koran by Florida Pastor Terry Jones.

22 Hess, 815.

23 Joanne Garde-Hansen, Andrew Hoskins and Anna Reading, “Introduction,” in Joanne Garde-Hansen, Andrew Hoskins and Anna Reading, eds., Save As… Digital Memories (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009), 1–21, 3. See also José van Dijck, Mediated Memories in the Digital Age (Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press).

24 Haskins, Ekaterina, “Between Archive and Participation: Public Memory in a Digital Age,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 37, 4 (2007), 401–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 405.

25 Amongst many others, see “Where Were You … September 11th, Two Thousand And One,” Entry #1: Lisa, 17, New Jersey, posted 15 Sept. 2001, available via: http://www.wherewereyou.org/view, last accessed 3 March 2011; “Where Were You … September 11th, Two Thousand And One,” Entry #9: Jim Corcoran, 16, Connecticut, posted 15 Sept. 2001, available via: http://www.wherewereyou.org/view, last accessed 3 March 2011; “Where Were You … September 11th, Two Thousand And One,” Entry #14: Jade Huguenin, 17, Connecticut, posted 15 Sept. 2001, available via: http://www.wherewereyou.org/view, last accessed 10 Oct. 2010. Subsequent references to WhereWereYou may be located via the site's Search function at http://www.wherewereyou.org/search. All entries hereafter last accessed 3 March 2011, and referenced as presented by posters.

26 See, for example, WhereWereYou Entry #24: Becky, 19 Colorado, posted 16 Sept. 2001; WhereWereYou Entry #167: Carolina, 18, Texas, posted 27 Sept. 2001; WhereWereYou Entry #221: DeeAnn D., 21, Pennsylvania, posted 27 Oct. 2001; WhereWereYou Entry #245: Rick Woodcock, IT Manager, 43, California, posted 10 Nov. 2001.

27 WhereWereYou Entry #15: Heather Mannion, 18, Pennsylvania, posted 16 Sept. 2001.

28 WhereWereYou Entry #205: Jonathan Moore, 40, Pennsylvania, posted 10 Oct. 2001.

29 WhereWereYou Entry #152: Crystal Sava, 17, New York, posted 24 Sept. 2001; WhereWereYou Entry #212: anna s., 40, Nebraska, posted 22 Oct. 2001.

30 WhereWereYou Entry #181: Maxime, 38, New York, posted 1 Oct. 2001.

31 WhereWereYou Entry #176: Viktorya B, 24, New York, posted 29 Sept. 2001.

32 WhereWereYou Entry #237: Leila Bryner, 26, New York, posted 4 Nov. 2001.

33 WhereWereYou Entry #229: Joe Hanley, 40, New Jersey, posted 1 Nov. 2001.

34 David Campbell, “Time Is Broken: The Return of the Past in Response to September 11,” Theory & Event, 5, 4 (2001).

35 See Jackson, Writing the War on Terrorism; Jarvis, Times of Terror.

36 John Ashcroft, Robert Mueller, Rudolph Giuliani and George Pataki, “Remarks from Press Conference at WTC, New York,” available at http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/agcrisisremarks9_21pc.htm, last accessed 17 April 2003.

37 Richard Cheney, “The Vice President Appears on Meet the Press with Tim Russert,” 16 September 2001, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/vp20010916.html, last accessed 3 April 2006.

38 WhereWereYou Entry #243: Sarah, 30, Connecticut, posted 9 Nov. 2001.

39 WhereWereYou Entry #225: Rainer Block, 43, Germany, posted 29 Oct. 2001.

40 Condoleezza Rice and Tom Ridge, “New Counter-terrorism and CyberSpace Security Positions Announced,” available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011009–4.html, last accessed 11 Sept. 2004.

41 See Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London: Verso, 2006), 1–18.

42 See, for example, Carol K. Winkler, In the Name of Terrorism: Presidents on Political Violence in the Post-World War II Era (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006), 1.

43 Edward S. Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan, “‘Terrorism’ as Ideology and Cultural Industry,” in Alexander George, ed., Western State Terrorism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), 39–75.

44 As Sorlin argues, “by transferring from the social to the individual, fiction offers a clear, simple view on difficult problems and helps the public to understand or perceive what would be less obvious if the infinite complexity of ‘the real’ was taken into account.” See Pierre Sorlin, “Children as War Victims in Postwar European Cinema,” in Jay Winter and Emmanuel Sivan, eds., War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 104–24, 106.

45 For analysis of the relationships between public and private in the context of digital memory, see Van Dijck, Mediated Memories.

46 WhereWereYou Entry #8: Stephen, 19, Australia, posted 15 Sept. 2001.

47 WhereWereYou Entry #205: Jonathan Moore, 40, Pennsylvania, posted 15 Oct. 2001.

48 WhereWereYou Entry #107: Amber G, 22, North Carolina, posted 20 Sept. 2001.

49 For discussion of the widespread reading of 9/11 as a Hollywood spectacle see Jeff Lewis, Language Wars: The Role of Media and Culture in Global Terror and Political Violence (London: Pluto, 2005), 110–12.

50 WhereWereYou Entry #210: Alex, 26, Illinois, posted 21 Oct. 2001.

51 WhereWereYou Entry #20: Vicky, 18, Bahrain, posted 16 Sept. 2001.

52 Olick and Robbins, “Social Memory Studies,” 111.

53 WhereWereYou Entry #71: Ryan Beck-Buysse, 20, Minnesota, posted 18 Sept. 2001.

54 WhereWereYou Entry #43: Eliana, 33, California, posted 17 Sept. 2001.

55 WhereWereYou Entry #134: Jenny Devil, 23, District of Columbia, posted 22 Sept. 2001.

56 WhereWereYou Entry #2: Justin Arthrell, 20, Texas, posted 15 Sept. 2001.

57 The role of others in confirming, challenging and otherwise mediating individual memories has long been a theme for studies of social memory. The pioneer of this field of study, Maurice Halbwachs, for example, explored this as an example of the externality of memory. See Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, 38. Zerubavel, more recently, has explored these themes by reference to “mnemonic others.” See Zerubavel, Eviatar, “Social Memories: Steps to a Sociology of the Past,” Qualitative Sociology 19, 3 (1996), 285CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 WhereWereYou Entry #190: Helen Gruner, 15, California, posted 5 Oct. 2001.

59 WhereWereYou Entry #75: Thomas, 18, Georgia, posted 18 Sept. 2001.

60 For an overview of President Bush's usage of World War II rhetoric throughout the global war on terror see Noon, David Hoogland, “Operation Enduring Analogy: World War II, the War on Terror, and the Uses of Historical Memory,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 7, 3 (2004), 339–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Indeed, it is possible to identify competing understandings of 9/11's temporal location even within the George W. Bush administration's reflections on those events. See Jarvis, Times of Terror.

62 See Hynes on myths of war (for him a term preferable to collective memory), in Samuel Hynes, “Personal Narratives and Commemoration,” in Winter and Sivan, 205–20, 206.

63 Jenny Kidd, “Digital Storytelling and the Performance of Memory,” in Garde-Hansen, Hoskins and Reading, 167–83, 180.

64 WhereWereYou Entry #102: Brian Pride, 39, New York, posted 19 Sept. 2001.

65 WhereWereYou Entry #108: Kelly, 21, Colorado, posted 20 Sept. 2001.

66 WhereWereYou Entry #123: Scot, 26, Texas, posted 21 Sept. 2001.

67 For overviews on the recurrence of the themes traced below within elite discourses of terrorism in the pre- and post-9/11 periods, compare Joseba Zulaika and William A. Douglass, Terror and Taboo: The Follies, Fables, and Faces of Terrorism (London: Routledge, 1996); and Jackson, Writing the War on Terrorism.

68 Lazar and Lazar explore political discourses on terrorists as irrational actors in the context of broader orientalist tropes linked to the moral depravity of those deemed other. See Anita Lazar and Lazar, Michelle M., “The Discourse of the New World Order: ‘Out-casting’ the Double Face of Threat,” Discourse & Society, 2, 3 (2004), 223–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 234.

69 WhereWereYou Entry #77: Dracumancer, 18, Michigan, posted 18 Sept. 2001.

70 WhereWereYou Entry #196: Kristin, 19, Michigan, posted 9 Oct. 2001.

71 For analysis of the widespread resort to notions of “evil” in contemporary discourses on terrorism see Kellner, Douglass, “9/11, Spectacles of Terror, and Media Manipulation: A Critique of Jihadist and Bush media politics,” Critical Discourse Studies, 1, 1 (2004), 41–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peter Singer, The President of Good and Evil: Taking George W. Bush Seriously (London: Granta Books, 2004).

72 WhereWereYou Entry #26: Claire, 19, United Kingdom, posted 16 Sept. 2001.

73 WhereWereYou Entry #117: Elizabeth S. Bogos, 20, Pennsylvania, posted 21 Sept. 2001.

74 For an analysis of contemporary tropes of monstrosity in counterterrorism discourse more broadly see Rai, Amit S., “Of Monsters: Biopower, Terrorism and Excess in Genealogies of Monstrosity,” Cultural Studies, 18, 4 (2004), 538–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75 WhereWereYou Entry #99: Lon Seidman, 24, Connecticut, posted 19 Sept. 2001.

76 WhereWereYou Entry #102: Brian Pride, 39, New York, posted 19 Sept. 2001.

77 Jackson, Writing the War on Terrorism.

78 WhereWereYou Entry #205: Jonathan Moore, 40, Pennsylvania, posted 15 Oct. 2001.

79 WhereWereYou Entry #109: Grant, 18, Canada, posted 20 Sept. 2001.

80 WhereWereYou Entry #72: Maz, 23, United Kingdom, posted 18 Sept. 2001.

81 WhereWereYou Entry #39: Meg, 20, Vermont, posted 16 Sept. 2001.

82 WhereWereYou Entry #20: Vicky, 18, Bahrain, posted 16 Sept. 2001.

83 WhereWereYou Entry #172: Mandi, 23, Illinois, posted 27 Sept. 2001.

84 WhereWereYou Entry #2: Justin Arthrell, 20, Texas, posted 15 Sept. 2001.

85 WhereWereYou Entry #14: Jade Huguenin, 17, Connecticut, posted 15 Sept. 2001.

86 WhereWereYou Entry #19: Lauren, 17, Connecticut, posted 16 Sept. 2001.

87 WhereWereYou Entry #125: Courtney, 22, United States, posted 21 Sept. 2001.

88 WhereWereYou Entry #190: Helen Gruner, 15, California, posted 6 Oct. 2001.

89 WhereWereYou Entry #229: Joe Hanley, 40, New Jersey, posted 23 Sept. 2001.

90 WhereWereYou Entry #73: Hilary Johnson, 26, Connecticut, posted 18 Sept. 2001.

91 For an excellent discussion of these themes in relation to an Internet project organized around the 2005 London bombings see Weber, Cynthia, “An Aesthetics of Fear: The 7/7 London Bombings, the Sublime, and Werenotafraid.com,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 34, 3 (2006), 683–710CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

92 Benedict Andersen, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd edn (London: Verso, 1991).

93 Edkins, Trauma and the Memory of Politics, 34.

94 Simpson, 9/11.

95 Robin Wagner-Pacifici and Schwartz, Barry, “The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Commemorating a Difficult Past,” American Journal of Sociology, 97, 2 (1991), 376–420Google Scholar; Sturken, Tangled Memories.

96 Haskins, “Between Archive and Participation,” 406.

97 See Derrida and Borradori, “Autoimmunity,” 85–94.

98 Devetak, Richard, “After the Event: Don DeLillo's White Noise and September 11 narratives,” Review of International Studies, 35, 4 (2009), 795–815CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 803.

99 WhereWereYou Entry #32: Katie K., 17, Connecticut, posted 16 Sept. 2001.

100 WhereWereYou Entry #76: Jody Williams, 22, North Carolina, posted 18 Sept. 2001.

101 WhereWereYou Entry #100: Andy Hicks, 23, Connecticut, posted 19 Sept. 2001.

102 WhereWereYou Entry #238: Casey Krugman, 20, District of Columbia, posted 6 Nov. 2001.

103 WhereWereYou Entry #54: James Ryan McLean, 28, Texas, posted 17 Sept. 2001.

104 WhereWereYou Entry #118: lisa, 26, Washington, posted 21 Sept. 2001.

105 WhereWereYou Entry #99: Lon Seidman, 24, Connecticut, posted 19 Sept. 2001.

106 WhereWereYou Entry #11: Ashley, 17, Oklahoma, posted 15 Sept. 2001.

107 WhereWereYou Entry #190: Helen Gruner, 15, California, posted 6 Oct. 2001.

108 WhereWereYou Entry #112: emily jane, 15, New Jersey, posted 20 Sept. 2001.

109 WhereWereYou Entry #115: Scott Eberl, 25, Wisconsin, posted 21 Sept. 2001.

110 WhereWereYou Entry #77: Dracumancer, 18, Michigan, posted 18 Sept. 2001.

111 WhereWereYou Entry #28: David McVey, 18, Texas, posted 16 Sept. 2001.

112 WhereWereYou Entry #44: Grey Frequency, 23, New York, posted 17 Sept. 2001.

113 WhereWereYou Entry #73: Hilary Johnson, 26, Connecticut, posted 21 Sept. 2001.

114 WhereWereYou Entry #250: Chris Plewik, 18, California, posted 13 Nov. 2001.

115 WhereWereYou Entry #94: Romy Adame, 20, Texas, posted 19 Sept. 2001.

116 WhereWereYou Entry #234: Patricia, 18, Ohio, posted 3 Nov. 2001.

117 WhereWereYou Entry #48: Azrael D'Vega, 19, Connecticut, posted 17 Sept. 2001.

118 WhereWereYou Entry #186: Anthony M. Capriotti, 23, New York, posted 5 Oct. 2001.

119 See Leshu Torchin, “Since We Forgot: Remembrance and Recognition of the Armenian Genocide in Virtual Archives,” in Frances Guerin and Roger Hallas, eds., The Image and the Witness: Trauma, Memory and Visual Culture (London: Wallflower, 2007), 82–97, 86.

120 I am grateful to the editors for helping clarify my thinking on this point.

121 As one poster put it, “I was asleep in Los Angeles. Wherewereyou.org didn't exist. The world seemed much more fun.” WhereWereYou Entry #51: dvg, 109, California, posted 17 Sept. 2001.

122 Nora, “Between Memory and History,” 13.

123 On the link between digital technologies and autobiographical memory see Kidd, “Digital Storytelling and the Performance of Memory.”

124 See Andrew Hoskins, “The Mediatisation of Memory,” in Garde-Hansen, Hoskins and Reading, 27–44, 38.

125 Richard Jackson, “The 9/11 Attacks and the Social Construction of a National Narrative,” in Morgan, The Impact of 9/11, 25–35, 31–32.