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- Convenors:
-
Valentina Gamberi
(Research Centre for Material Culture)
Chiara Calzana (University of Turin)
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- Discussant:
-
Francisco Martínez
(Tampere University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Music Building (MUS), Lecture Room 101
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 27 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel welcomes papers dealing with heritage practices in post-disaster areas. It reflects on how the material traces of ruins and natural and historical tragedies continue to play a role in the present and metamorphose in future hopes, engagements, and utopias.
Long Abstract:
What if anthropologists let ruins speak? With the critical analysis of "Southern" epistemologies by de Sousa Santos (2014) and a historical-material approach to the so-called "difficult heritage" (Macdonald 2008), there is a growing interest in the anthropological potential of ruins and post-disaster contexts. Ruins and traces of natural and historical tragedies are lost pasts shipwrecked in the present with their material trace that will continue to transform in future hopes, engagements and utopias. They embody a past haunting current practice, posing ethical dilemmas on their present and future usages by the social actors and collectivities that enter into contact with them. Ruins open a dialogical space between institutional politics of memory as well as grassroots claims on the past that can work in synergy or, conversely, in conflict with each other. At the same time, ruined material crafts imaginaries and affective orientations (Ahmed 2004) towards traumatic memories for then transforming the latter's scars into building materials for a future, collective res-publica. Not only are ruins material remaining, but they are also resistant, counter-hegemonic thoughts to venture the future otherwise.
This panel sets out to reflect on the sustainability of post-traumatic memories and what is lost with the vanishing materiality of difficult pasts. It reflects on possible ways to think ruins and difficult traces of the past beyond the Western-centric categories of the abject and the residual in favor of a resilient and counter-hegemonic perspective in which ruined worlds can be generative of something new (DeSilvey 2017; Martínez 2018).
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 27 July, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
The paper examines the shifting interpretations of the Soba archeological site (medieval capital of the Nubian kingdom of Alwa)) from an ethnographic perspective. This presentation aims to discuss the findings of a research on the relations between an archaeological site and the local community.
Paper long abstract:
The paper examines the shifting interpretations of the Soba archeological site (medieval capital of the Nubian kingdom of Alwa)) from an ethnographic perspective. This presentation aims to discuss the findings of a research on the relations between an archaeological site (“Soba past”) and today’s population – the remains of the medieval city are today part of a rapidly developing suburb of the capital of Sudan – Khartoum (that’s “Modern Soba”). What is the attitude of the residents to archaeological traces, can we treat them both as archaeological and anthropological traces, to what extent can Soba past be helpuful in projecting the life within urban setting? ‘Past Soba’ and ‘Modern Soba’ are two intertwined space-time continuums, whose ‘relations’ are complex. The first impression is that due to accelerating urbanization processes the attitude of the residents of the Modern Soba towards the remains of medieval Soba is clearly antagonistic. A sort of “anomaly”, “disruption” or “thing left behind”. However, at the same time the Past Soba occupies a certain place in the local residents’ cultural memory. The “Soba past” has begun to speak and is being re-used for individual or group formation within urban setting. Moreover, many of the inhabitants of modern Soba have direct contact with the antiquities on a daily basis. This has an impact on the way they see and understand the place and its history. The ongoing ethnographic research is linked with an archaeological project entitled Soba – the heart of the Kingdom of Alwa.
Paper short abstract:
This paper aims to show, through the case of the pae pae in the Marquesas Islands, how the transmission of the past is a non-linear process and heritage represents a medium to get in touch with the expressions of the "invisible world", embedding the will to forget with the desire to rediscover it.
Paper long abstract:
In the Marquesas Islands, a long historical chapter following French colonisation (1842) was marked by the banning of certain native customs and practices, coupled with an attitude of rejection towards the material traces of the tradition. The pae pae (quadrangular lithic plinths) and all vestiges of settlements were depicted as "mute stones" (London 2018), expressions of the "silent land" (Dening 1980) and of a "dying race" with "no memory" of its past (Christian 1910, Segalen 1975 ; 2000)". For a long time such a stigmatized perception of the tradition was perpetuated by the Catholic church and new meanings given to concepts such as "mana" and "tapu" confined the past to another space (the forest and the ruins) and time (the night). However, with the "cultural awakening" of the last decades the restoration of the archeological sites is at stake and is nowadays driven by the attempt to enlist some of them at the Unesco WHL. This paper aims to show through the case of the pae pae how transmission presents itself as a non-linear process in which both dynamics of continuity, discontinuities and ruptures coexist. Assuming memories as moving elements, I will try to account how heritage is at the core of new cultural policies and it represents a medium to get in touch with the expressions of the "invisible world" of the past, embedding the will to forget of the elderly with the desire of the young to rediscover it.
Paper short abstract:
The present study tries to highlight the main characteristics of old parts of Craiova – some in ruin or renovated as they are valued today by local people, administration or cultural tourists. Some buildings are historical monuments, they got nationalized by the communists after the year 1947.
Paper long abstract:
The present study tries to highlight the main characteristics of old parts of Craiova – some in ruin or renovated as they are valued today by local people, administration or cultural tourists.
Craiova was called “the town of the 1000 millionaires” because of its high society members – aristocrats that were the owners of houses, commercial buildings, and land in the city and in the rural parts of Wallachia. The communist times and the earthquake from 1977 changed the configuration on the main streets in Craiova; many these houses got ruined. The ruins are still alive in the memory of the ’40-’50 generations, they remember and talk about the image of the old town as they kept it in their memories. The commercial center of Craiova got renovated and recuperates in part its own old charm from the XIXth Century’s atmosphere – reconstructed architecture, statues and pictures on the walls of the buildings representing chariots and old fashion clothes.
A characteristic of Craiova city are these old houses, many of them considered historical monuments of the national heritage.These buildings got nationalized by the communists after the year 1947. After the Romanian Revolution in 1989, the houses were given back to the heirs, but only few of them renovated and took care of them. Many heirs tried to sell them at an exorbitant price that they never received and the houses began to ruin. Some of them were bought by banks, or by local businessmen who opened fancy restaurants inside them.