ABSTRACT
With a focus on the object and where it is situated, in time (memory) and space (mobility), Memory, Mobility, and Material Culture embodies a multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approach.
The chapters track the movement of the objects and their owner(s), within and between continents, countries, cities, and families. Objects have always been considered with an eye to their worth – economic, aesthetic, and/or functional. If that worth is diminished, their meaning and value disappear, they are just things. Yet things can still fulfil functions in our daily lives; they hold symbolic potential, from personal memory triggers, to focal points of public ritual and religion; from collectors’ obsession, to symbols of loss, displacement, and violence. By bringing into dialogue the work of specialists in ethnology, art history, architecture, and design; literature, languages, cultures, and heritage studies, this volume considers how displaced memory – the memory of refugees, migrants, and their descendants; of those who have moved from the countryside to the city; of those who have faced personal upheaval and profound social change; those who have been forced into exile or experienced major personal or collective loss – can become embodied in material culture.
This book is important reading to those interested in cultural and social history and cultural studies.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|57 pages
Moving Testimonies
chapter 1|18 pages
Valijas militantes
chapter 2|18 pages
Migrating Things, Multimodal Forms
chapter 3|19 pages
Why Is a Museum a Place to Rest in Peace? 1
part II|56 pages
Moving Homes
chapter 4|18 pages
Rhinos, Photographs and Earrings
chapter 6|21 pages
Communicative Memory and Diaspora Space
part III|56 pages
Moving Designs
chapter 8|16 pages
The Social Role of Jewellery in Italian Short Stories
chapter 9|18 pages
Learning from Rural Objects in 1970s Italy
part IV|55 pages
Moving Histories