HomeTransition, Displacement and Circulation of Objects: Visible and Unseen
Transition, Displacement and Circulation of Objects: Visible and Unseen
Transition, déplacement et circulation des objets : Visible et « invu »
Published on Friday, February 14, 2020
Abstract
This colloquium aims to inquire into the meanings ascribed to, and produced by, the material objects in course of their travel, displacement, circulation, transition in time and space. We suggest to discuss the phenomenology of transitional objects and their performative power; to understand how the meanings of these objects are anchored in their materiality and visibility, how they are communicated by the historical references they evoke, and tightened with the identity of communities that see or ignore them
Announcement
Presentation
This colloquium aims to inquire into the meanings ascribed to, and produced by, the material objects in course of their travel, displacement, circulation, transition in time and space. We suggest to discuss the phenomenology of transitional objects and their performative power; to understand how the meanings of these objects are anchored in their materiality and visibility, how they are communicated by the historical references they evoke, and tightened with the identity of communities that see or ignore them.
First, we will address the styles and mechanisms of performance of the past in the present through objects. How the material traces of the past contribute to a social and spatial incorporation of the lived facts and experiences into a contemporary life? We are especially interested in material marks that have an unmonumental character. Subtly visible, created intentionally or accidentally, they are melted in the landscape of everyday; they could become apparent or stay unnoticed. Anthropologists and sociologists seek for such material traces of the past, because they usually carry alternative or critical narratives. What are the meanings of these traces and marks and for whom? When and how they emerge and serve a memory cartography of vanished social spaces or daily lives that sometimes were brutally changed; or they reconstitute a vibrant significance of empty spaces, gray zones of collective memory spaces?
The contemporary migration of objects, both as ideas and as social practices constitutes another angle of analysis. In the context of numerous studies on circulation of products in global economy, we ask to focus on revealing the unseen symbolic aspects of the exchange, travel and revitalization of objects. Which historical and local meanings of the objects are lost in their global migration and hidden in the materiality of the object? What new meanings are constructed? For whom these meanings are invisible and for whom they are deliberately explicit and demonstrative?
Finally, we are also interested in impact of the objects on the procedure of the social sciences, and in particular in sociology and anthropology. We propose to think over how the objects serve us in course of research, to discuss the double meaning of the “object” of our studies. In this part of the colloquium, participants will present an object found directly at their field research, or the one connected to their study, aiming to trace reflexively the interpretative practice, to reveal the invisible link between the objects and research insights.
Organizing Committee
- Michele Baussant
- Julia Lerner
- Sofia Tchouikina
Program
21.2.2020
Salle de conférence Max Weber
Batiment Max Weber, Université Paris Nanterre
(Maison max weber, rez-de chaussée, salle des conférences)
Part I: A Memory Cartography of Vanished Social Spaces and Daily Lives
10:00 – 12:30
Discutant : Michele Baussant (CNRS, ISP)
- Tamar Rapoport (Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Humboldt University Berlin) and Peter Carrier (Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research), Watching and Noticing Stumbling Stones
- Eliza Frenkel (Ben Gurion University of the Negev), Installing contested memory: (In)visible commemoration of the Stalinist terror in post-Soviet Russia through the” last known address”
- Ksenia Pimenova (FNRS / ULB, Laboratoire d’Anthropologie des Mondes Contemporains), To show or to hide? Repatriation, recontextualization and scopic regimes for human remains in museums
Lunch Break
13:30-15:00
- Jackie Feldman (Ben Gurion University of the Negev), The Shoah Survivor as lieu de mémoire? Material witness in a digital age
- Sofia Tchouikina, (Université Paris VIII Vincennes-Saint-Denis and ISP), Letters from Soviet prison camps : from family memory object to a museum exhibit
Coffee Break
Part II: The double meaning of the “object” in researches
15:30-18:00
- Maria Couroucli (CNRS/IIAC), Flag, relic, shroud and procession. The domestication of the Athens Polytechnic commemorations
- Johana Wyss (Academie tchèque des sciences and Max Planck Institute), Caring for the Left Behind: German Parcel to Czechoslovakia
- Irène dos Santos (CNRS/Urmis), Document d'identité d'un exilé de l'empire portugais
- Fabienne Wateau (CNRS/LESC), Muret de pierre et pierre de muret : pillage, mémoire et souvenir du village noyé
- Miguel Rodriguez-Lizana (Paris Nanterre/LESC), Le Seigneur de Chalma à Milpa Alta (Mexique) : un saint sans parole, un pèlerin caché sous la lumière
- Julia Lerner (Ben Gurion University of the Negev and ISP), Objects as words, words as objects: Insight from research on migration and relationships
Subjects
- Ethnology, anthropology (Main category)
- Society > Sociology
- Society > History
Places
- Salle de conférence Max Weber Batiment Max Weber, Université Paris Nanterre, rdc - Université Paris Nanterre Maison Max Weber
Nanterre, France (92)
Date(s)
- Friday, February 21, 2020
Keywords
- displacement, circulation, traces of the past, unseen, objects
Contact(s)
- Michele Baussant
courriel : michele [dot] baussant [at] cnrs [dot] fr
Information source
- Michele Baussant
courriel : michele [dot] baussant [at] cnrs [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Transition, Displacement and Circulation of Objects: Visible and Unseen », Study days, Calenda, Published on Friday, February 14, 2020, https://doi.org/10.58079/14i0