A memory study: Observing 2011 Van earthqouakes through the collective memory

This study is about examining the earthquake in regards to collective memory. The purpose of this study is to investigate the constitution and the transmission of the collective memory on the earthquake in the case of the city of Van, through a focus on the relationship between the memory and the earthquake in a sociological level. Collective memory is the sum of remembering practices that exist outside of the people's minds, although it also exists in individual memory, and all the while it affects and forms the memories of the individuals. The layers of collective memory are formed in parallel to the relations established in society. For an event or a situation to be incorporated into social memory, it needs to be witnessed by more than one person. Earthquakes, as traumatic events that shake the whole social life and individuals at the same time, deeply affect the social memory. In this context, the main topic of this thesis is how consecutive earthquakes of 2011, which happened in Van and its surrounding area with a huge loss of life and property, is remembered and transmission by the townspeople who have experienced both earthquakes. It has been aimed to reveal; how people, who experienced it, remember the 2011 Van earthquakes generally and specifically the unexpected fall of Bayram Hotel with the second earthquake also to understand how these are situated in the collective memory. According to those, it is going to be explored how the earthquake experience is situated in memory and what is remembered and what is forgotten. This study as qualitative research relies on the interviews conducted with people who stayed in the city, rather than migrated somewhere else, through the earthquakes. Consequently; the development of collective memory of first and second earthquakes and what is remembered about the collapse of the Bayram Hotel, which has become a symbolic place for the earthquakes, is going to be analysed through people's oral narratives.