Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
Ruins, rubble and decaying material can foster a more layered theory of time, change and memory. The seven ethnographic case studies in Haunting Ruins trace human engagements with the temporal forces of ruins, which can trace the past and transform the present. Conjuring environmental humanities, the anthropology of history, memory and archaeology, this book delves into the complex influence of the past on the present and the future and urges scholars to consider ruins as things to think with.
“From a conceptual, argumentative and methodological point of view, the book is effective and rigorous. It is a well-developed volume which will be of interest to a wide audience.” • Giacomo Pozzi, IULM University
Valentina Gamberi is a MSCA-CZ fellow at Palacký University Olomouc (UPOL). Previously, she held positions as an adjunct lecturer (University of Bologna, 2022–2023) and a research fellow (Research Centre for Material Culture in Leiden, 2021–2022 and the Institute of Ethnology of Academia Sinica, 2019–2020). Her most recent publication in English is Experiencing Materiality: Museum Perspectives (Berghahn, 2021).
List of Figures
Introduction: For an Ethnographic Microhistory through Ruins
Chiara Calzana and Valentina Gamberi
Part I: Ethnographic Lenses for Ruination
Chapter 1. A Landscape of Failures: The Historical Ecology of Ruins in the Po River Delta
Francesco Danesi Della Sala
Chapter 2. From Desire to Avoidance: Contrasting Interactions with the Rubble of Familiar Spaces Affected by an Earthquake and a Planned Flood (China)
Katiana Le Mentec
Part II: Hauntings
Chapter 3. A Scattered Self: Composing Subjectivities through Ruined Houses (Taiwan)
Valentina Gamberi
Chapter 4. Contested Memoryscapes: Post-Disaster Ruins and Memorial Practices in the Vajont Valley (Italy)
Chiara Calzana
Chapter 5. Ruins of Remains: Unpacking Narratives about a Cemetery of ‘Political Victims’
Fang-I Chu
Part III: Curating Ruins
Chapter 6. Ruins in the Forest: Conserving, Abandoning and Feeling Heritage in the Marquesas Islands (French Polynesia)
Giacomo Nerici
Chapter 7. Soba Past versus Soba Present: Ethnography of Soba Archeological Site (Sudan)
Marciej Kurcz
Afterword: The Only Real Nation Is Ruination
Francisco Martinez
Index