Bille / Hastrup / Soerensen An Anthropology of Absence

Materializations of Transcendence and Loss
2010
ISBN: 978-1-4419-5529-6
Verlag: Springer US
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 221 Seiten

In studying material culture, anthropologists and archaeologists use meaningful physical objects from a culture to help understand the less tangible aspects of that culture, such as societal structure, rituals, and values. What happens when these objects are destroyed, by war, natural disaster, or other historical events? Through detailed explanations of eleven international case studies, the contributions reveal that the absence of objects can be just as telling as their presence, while the objects created to memorialize a loss also have important cultural implications. Covering everything from organ donation, to funerary rituals, to prisoners of war, The Archaeology of Absence is written at an important intersection of archaeological and anthropological study. Divided into three sections, this volume uses the 'presence' of absence to compare cultural perceptions of: material qualities and created memory, the mind/body connection, temporality, and death. This rich text provides a strong theoretical framework for anthropologists and archaeologists studying material culture.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bille, Mikkel

Hastrup, Frida

Soerensen, Tim Flohr

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Acknowledgements;5
2;Contents;6
3;Contributors;8
4;Chapter 1;12
4.1;Introduction: An Anthropology of Absence;12
4.1.1;The Corporeality of Absence;12
4.1.2;Philosophies of Absence;13
4.1.3;Presence and Absence in Everyday Life;16
4.1.4;Perspectives on the Agency of Absence;20
4.1.5;Towards an Anthropology of Absence;22
4.1.6;References;27
5;Chapter 2;32
5.1;People Without Things;32
5.1.1;Introduction;32
5.1.2;The Carnality of Absence;35
5.1.3;Naked Society;40
5.1.4;Conclusion;47
5.1.5;References;48
6;Chapter 3;52
6.1;Missing Bodies Near-at-Hand: The Dissonant Memory and Dormant Graves of the Spanish Civil War;52
6.1.1;Introduction;52
6.1.2;“Bring Them Back Alive”: The Absent Dead as A Site of Active Political Tension;56
6.1.3;“The Disappeared” Versus “the Not Known of”:Conceptualizing the Spanish Republican Dead;58
6.1.4;Scattered in the Mountains but Buried Near-at-Hand: Dissonance in the Location of the Dead;61
6.1.5;Bodies as Seeds: Organic Metaphors for the Dormancy and Instability of Human Remains;64
6.1.6;Conclusion;66
6.1.7;References;67
7;Chapter 4;69
7.1;A Sense of Absence: The Staging of Heroic Deaths and Ongoing Lives among American Organ Donor Families;69
7.1.1;Introduction;69
7.1.2;Staging Absence: Organizational Sense-Making;71
7.1.3;Transforming Absence: Constructing a Hero;73
7.1.4;Commemorating the Dead: Objects of Acknowledgement;75
7.1.5;Living in Others: Durable Body Parts;79
7.1.6;Performing and Pursuing the Presence of the Dead and the Legitimacy of the Bereaved;82
7.1.7;References;85
8;Chapter 5;88
8.1;Derivative Presence: Loss and Lives in Limbo in the West Bank;88
8.1.1;Introduction: Voids;88
8.1.2;Framing Absence;89
8.1.3;Presenting the Loss of Palestine;92
8.1.4;Lives in Limbo;93
8.1.5;Ambiguous Absence;98
8.1.6;References;100
9;Chapter 6;103
9.1;Materializations of Disaster: Recovering Lost Plots in a Tsunami-Affected Village in South India;103
9.1.1;Introduction;103
9.1.2;Recovery and the Realm of the Ordinary;104
9.1.3;A Monument to Mourning;106
9.1.4;The Materiality of Loss;108
9.1.5;Interrupted Trajectories;112
9.1.6;Conclusion: On New Plots;113
9.1.7;References;115
10;Chapter 7;118
10.1;A Saturated Void: Anticipating and Preparing Presence in Contemporary Danish Cemetery Culture;118
10.1.1;Introduction;118
10.1.2;Absence and Commemoration;120
10.1.3;Design Idioms in Danish Cemeteries;121
10.1.4;Absences at Danish Cemeteries;122
10.1.4.1;Temporary Voids: Death As Completion;123
10.1.4.2;Incomplete Information: Death As Continuation;124
10.1.5;Contained Absence: The Textual and the Material;126
10.1.5.1;Textual Gaps;126
10.1.5.2;Material Gaps;128
10.1.6;Conclusion: Generative Lacunae;130
10.1.7;References;132
11;Chapter 8;134
11.1;Bringing Home the Dead: Photographs, Family Imaginaries and Moral Remains;134
11.2;References;148
12;Chapter 9;151
12.1;Absent Powers: Magic and Loss in Post-socialist Mongolia;151
12.1.1;Introduction;151
12.1.2;Unknown Spirit Powers in Contemporary Mongolia;153
12.1.3;Socialism and the Labor of the Negative;155
12.1.4;Manufacturing Absence in a Written Buddhist Charm;158
12.1.5;Effects of Absence: Indeterminacy and Avoidance;161
12.1.6;Conclusion;165
12.1.7;References;167
13;Chapter 10;169
13.1;Seeking Providence Through Things: The Word of God Versus Black Cumin;169
13.1.1;Introduction;169
13.1.2;The Physicality of Protection;172
13.1.3;The Ambiguous Immateriality of the Word of God;175
13.1.4;Reformulating Absence;180
13.1.5;Conclusion;183
13.1.6;References;184
14;Chapter 11;187
14.1;Presencing the Im-Material;187
14.1.1;Introduction;187
14.1.2;The Absent Present, Propinquity and Things;188
14.1.3;The Absent Present;188
14.1.4;The Prototype and Propinquity;189
14.1.5;Icons, Idols and Books: Haptic Vision and Visual Co-Presence;191
14.1.6;Vision and Materiality;194
14.1.7;Typography, Text, Words and Things;196
14.1.8;Recent Understandings of the Prototype: Rapid Manufacturing;198
14.1.9;Conclusion: Propinquity and Presence;203
14.1.10;References;204
15;Chapter 12;207
15.1;An Anthropology of Absence: Commentary;207
15.2;References;212
16;Index;214