Bücher der Reihe Material Mediations: People and Things in a World of Movement

Contrary to popular perceptions, cultural heritage is not given, but constantly in the making, subject to dynamic processes of (re)inventing culture within particular social formations and via particular forms of mediation.

Exploring the complex dynamics of twenty-first century spatial sociality, physical movement and placemaking in Northern Ireland, this volume provides a much-needed multi-dimensional perspective that undermines the dominant image of the country as a conflict-ridden place.

Most theories of material culture, transnationalism, and globalization have failed to incorporate a focus on emotions even though an increasing number of scholars in recent years have explored emotion-dense processes. This book fills the gap and examines how "emotions" can be theorized and serve as a useful analytical tool for understanding...

What gives artefacts their power and beauty? This ethnographic study of the decorated long yams made by the Nyamikum Abelam in Papua New Guinea examines how these artefacts acquire their specific properties through processes that mobilise and recruit diverse entities, substances and domains. All come together to form the 'finished product' that is displayed, representing what could be an indigenous form of non-verbal 'sociology'. Engaging with several contemporary anthropological topics (material culture, techniques, arts, aesthetics, rituals, botany, cosmology, Melanesian ethnography), the text also discusses in depth the complex position of the study of 'technology' within anthropology.

While sectarian violence has greatly diminished on the streets of Belfast and Derry, proxy battles over the right to define Northern Ireland's identity through its new symbolic landscapes continue. Offering a detailed ethnographic account of Northern Ireland's post-conflict visual transformation, this book examines the official effort to produce new civic images against a backdrop of ongoing political and social struggle. Interviews with politicians, policymakers, community leaders, cultural workers, and residents shed light on the deeply contested nature of seemingly harmonized urban landscapes in societies undergoing radical structural change. Here, the public art process serves as a vital means to understanding the wider politics of a transforming public sphere in an age of globalization and transnational connectivity.

In Death, Materiality and Mediation, Barbara Graham analyzes a diverse range of objects associated with remembrance in both the public and private arenas through ethnography of communities on both sides of the Irish border. In doing so, she explores the materially mediated interactions between the living and the dead, revealing the physical, cognitive, emotional, and spiritual roles of the dead in contemporary communities. Through this study, Graham expands the concept of materiality to include narrative, song, senses, emotions, ephemera and embodied experience. She also examines how modern practices are informed by older beliefs and folk religion.

Contrary to popular perceptions, cultural heritage is not given, but constantly in the making, subject to dynamic processes of (re)inventing culture within particular social formations and via particular forms of mediation.

Tracing in reverse the journey of a collection of Romanian folk objects from a museum in London back to the villages where they were made, From Storeroom to Stage explores the role that material culture plays in the production of value and meaning.

Despite the wide interest in material culture, art, & aesthetics, few studies have considered them in light of the importance of the social imagination - the complex ways in which we conceptualize our social surroundings. This collection engages the "material turn" in the arts, humanities, & social sciences through a range of original contributions

In recent years an increasing number of scholars have incorporated a focus on emotions in their theories of material culture, transnationalism and globalization, and this book aims to contribute to this field of inquiry.

Despite the wide interest in material culture, art, and aesthetics, few studies have considered them in light of the importance of the social imagination - the complex ways in which we conceptualize our social surroundings. This collection engages the "material turn" in the arts, humanities, and social sciences...

Exploring creative practices in various settings, the book calls attention to the spread of modernist discourses of creativity, from the colonial era to the current obsession with 'innovation' in neo-liberal capitalist cultural politics...

Through an interdisciplinary conversation with contributors from social anthropology, religious studies, film studies, literary studies, cultural studies, and history, Crafting Chinese Memories is the first volume to address how works of art shape memories, and offers new ways of conceptualising storytelling, memory-making, art, and materiality.

This book presents a nuanced view of Northern Ireland, a place at once deeply mired in its past and seeking to forge a new future for itself as a 'post-post-conflict' place within the context of a changing United Kingdom, a disintegrating Europe, and a globalized world.

The home and the museum are typically understood as divergent, even oppositional, social realms: whereas one evokes privacy and familial intimacy, the other is conceived of as a public institution oriented around various forms of civic identity. This meticulous, insightful book draws striking connections between both spheres, which play similar roles by housing objects and generating social narratives. Through fascinating explorations of the museums and domestic spaces of eight representative Israeli communities-Chabad, Moroccan, Iraqi, Ethiopian, Russian, Religious-Zionist, Christian Arab, and Muslim Arab-it gives a powerful account of museums' role in state formation, proposing a new approach to collecting and categorizing particularly well-suited to societies in conflict.