The lost clock

Using as a case-study a clock that belonged to the author’s father, this chapter begins with an exploration of memory research’s studies of migration and memory through migrant objects. The chapter argues that by overlooking memory’s involuntary, unbiddable, and rhetorical aspects, these studies overstate migrants’ capacity for agentic remembering. The chapter then uses its case-study of the author’s clock to make a case for an alternative approach to migrant objects and memory through the French psychoanalytic theorist Jean Laplanche’s writings on translation and the enigmatic message.