The essays in this book focus on contested memories in relation to time and space. Set within the context of several profound cultural and political conflicts in the contemporary world, the contributors analyze historical self-constructions of human groups, and their construction of the spaces which they shape and which shape them. What emerges from this effort is a view of the state as a highly contingent artifact of groups contending for legitimacy - whether through their own sense of "insiderhood", their control of positions within hierarchies, or their control of geographical territories. Each contributor addresses the (re)constitution of space, time and memory in relation to an event of either historical significance, like the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, or cultural importance, like the Indian preoccupation with reincarnation. These ethnographic studies explore fundamental questions about the nature of memory, the limits of politics, and the complex links between them.
By focusing on personal and collective identity as the site where constructions of memory and dimensionality are tested, shaped, and effected, they offer a new way of understanding how the politics of space, time and memory are negotiated to bring people to terms with their history. Jonathan Boyarin, an anthropologist, has studied and taught at the New School for Social Research. He is the author of several books.
- ISBN10 0816624526
- ISBN13 9780816624522
- Publish Date 18 November 1994
- Publish Status Transferred
- Out of Print 2 December 1999
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Minnesota Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 256
- Language English