'How to do things with memories' - chances for a discursive research

My aim in this study is to explore a thread of recent social constructionist research, that is, of discursive remembering. Doing this I would like to shed more light on this overall slightly vague term. In the main part the paper will take up the issue of discourse analysis in general and discursive remembering. I shall try to handle some of the problems which formed a hindrance in the reception of the discursive ideas, such as taking these ideas to be either trivial or absurd. Turning to the topic of discursive remembering, some suggestions will be given to the 'evolution' of the research of discursive remembering as having been derived from Neisser's ecological memory movement of the early '80s. While considering the important common points, the differences will be taken into account, such as the fundamental dimension of treating memory/remembering as an entity in itself or as a 'language game'. Around this and other dimensions the paper will investigate the debates (such as Neisser's Dean-study re-reinterpreted) on discursive remembering, and give some suggestions for the apparent misunderstandings between the mainstream and the discursive researchers. Finally, however, I will argue for research that, while being discursive, tries to integrate some aspects of cognitive and ecological memory research as well. That is, taking into account the discursive focus of 'how to do things with memories' (cf. Austin, 1990).