Migration, memory, and post-memory : experience narratives of Buriad peoples of Mongolia

Abstract

In this thesis, I am exploring the early 20th century migration of the Buriad people from the Baigal Lake region to Mongolia through oral narrative, focusing on how this was transmitted and preserved. There is not much application of the post-memory concept lens to the Mongolian Buriad migration topic, although many anthropologists and scholars have worked on topics related to the Buriads. Through the lenses of memory studies, particularly a post-memory one, the thesis examines how traumatic events can be transgenerationally inherited and shape the individual's and the collective's identity. Interviews conducted in Eastern Mongolia reveal that all the traumatic events influenced Buriad descendants' sense of belonging and perceptions of the contemporary turns.