Introduction: Approaching Sites of Memory

The aim of this chapter is to set the context, in order to appraise concepts dealing with sites of memory and the origins of this book project alongside approaches and methodologies of authors from various academic traditions. Overall the objective is to review narratives—past, present and future—of spaces of memory, memorialization and social-constructions from geographical and interdisciplinary perspectives using the 1914–18 World War One (WWI) centennials as an anchor, to give insights into its continuing unfolding legacies, and especially current geographies and geopolitics of emotions in Europe and elsewhere in an age of insecurities and globalization. The aim is not to write academic histories of WWI here, but rather to explore narratives of places of memory in their contemporary landscapes and geopolitical contexts embedded in wider geographical and socio-political discourses.