Call for communications
“Mortuary TRADITIONS
Memory, protocols, monuments”
Interdisciplinary conference organised by the
Maison Archéologie & Ethnologie, René-Ginouvès, 18-19-20 June 2014
Organised by Grégory Delaplace and Frédérique Valentin
In many respects, the question of mortuary traditions is a commonplace
of archaeology, history and anthropology. Actually, the study of the
practices, ideas and artefacts mobilised by a given society to the
death of one of its members is a classic topic –a topos– of these
disciplines. Sometimes, the sepulchres that past societies gave to
their deceased are the only traces left today to study them. Because
they reflected an index of social organisation and what economic
activities and daily life were like, funerary traditions have de facto
been the chief topic of archaeological research from the very start.
Historians and anthropologists took advantage of simultaneous access
to the remains and testimonies to study in a comparative perspective
“the funerary ideology” (Vernant 1989) of past and present societies;
the form of the sepulchre and the discourses about death and the
afterlife then translate the importance conferred to death in a given
society.
In fact, in another sense, the subject of funerary traditions is also
an actual “common place” of these disciplines in that it is
simultaneously considered in different theoretical and methodological
perspectives by archaeology, history and anthropology. Although each
of these disciplines benefits from the results obtained by the others
for its own research, this “common place” has seldom resulted in
actual common discussions. When they did take place, these discussions
generally turned out to be more dialogues bringing disciplines
together in pairs: archaeologists and historians (Gnoli and Vernant
1982), historians and anthropologists (Gordon and Marshall 2000) or
archaeologists and anthropologists (Humphreys 1981; Thévenet, Rivoal,
Sellier, Valentin, in print).
At its annual conference, the Maison Archéologie & Ethnologie offers
to take up the challenge of discussing the issues of funerary
traditions between archaeologists, historians and anthropologists
throughout human societies. This conference will provide a new
overview of the research on this issue by crossing the different
approaches of the disciplines represented in our institution while
serving as a starting point for further comparative perspectives
between them. Three lines of inquiry are proposed: Memory and regime
of visibility of the sepulchre
Several anthropological works suggested that human sepulchres were not
always intended to be used to support the memory of the deceased. As a
matter of fact, many societies in Amazonia (Taylor 1993) as in
Mongolia (Delaplace 2011) use sepulchres as a way to forget, as it
allows erasing all traces of the deceased and helps to wipe out his
memory. The idea that the monumentality of a sepulchre isn't
necessarily related to the prestige of its occupant and that a rapid
fade of memory could be intentional (without the deceased being
banned) provides an opportunity for a general reassessment of the
relationship between death, remains and memory. If we admit that the
grave is not necessarily the best place to celebrate the memory of the
deceased, or even that remembering isn't a categorical imperative of
funerary practices, then it is necessary to consider how memory and
forgetting combine with the different regime of visibility of
sepulchres and monuments – the less visible not necessarily being the
least prestigious. To what extent can these contemporary examples
"talk" to historians or archaeologists, whose research depends on
traces (written or constructed) left by past societies?
Rituals, protocols, practice
Even though some societies forget about the remains of their deceased,
or even erase them totally like various populations of Bali (Sebesteny
2013), upstream nevertheless, what will become of the body and soul is
still a key preoccupation (Hertz 1907; Thomas 1985). Care and
treatment of the deceased in all its aspects mobilise and engage to
varying extents relatives and the community around a set of gestures,
rituals and protocols that have a variable duration. What
relationships can be established between biological transformation of
the corpse (thanatomorphose), human manipulation of the body
(preparation, storage, destruction) and rite of passage?
Under what conditions can we infer ways of doing and protocols, from
what the archaeologist find after an excavation as a result of these
transformations and/or manipulations? Under what conditions can the
testimonies of historians and anthropologists inform about the ways of
doing of societies of the distant past? In the comparative perspective
of a dynamic analysis of the traces left by the sepulchres, we will
particularly question the interpretations of sepulchral staging and
the reconstructions of sequences of gestures and their meanings.
Spaces of death: (dis) placing human remains
The treatment of the deceased body and the form given to the sepulchre
confers to the remains of the deceased a place, a space, more or less
sustainable and localized, before its total oblivion or its
inscription in other systems. Beyond the classic question of the
"place of the dead" throughout human societies, which is bound to be
discussed anew by crossing archaeological, historical and
anthropological perspectives, attention will focus on the problems of
displaced or ill-placed deceased bodies, and generally to situations
where the place of the dead is not obvious anymore. From the denial of
burial (Polynices to Mohamed Merah) to moving the remains of fallen or
rehabilitated characters (Verdery 1999, Zempleni 2011) or even the
interventions of the state to legislate on the dignity or indignity of
certain treatments of the dead (Esquerre 2011), the idea is to bring a
new light on the question of spatialization of death.
Contributions developing interdisciplinary approaches and
collaborations between researchers will be preferred. Abstracts (200
words) should be sent before December 20, 2013 to Grégory Delaplace
([log in to unmask]) or Frederique Valentin
([log in to unmask]).
References cited:
Delaplace, Grégory. 2011. « Enterrer, submerger, oublier. Invention et
subversion du souvenir des morts en Mongolie ». Raisons Politiques 41
: 87-103.
Esquerre, Arnaud. 2011. Les os, les cendres et l’Etat. Paris : Fayard
(Histoire de la Pensée).
Gnoli G. et J.-P. Vernant (eds.). 1982. La mort, les morts dans les
sociétés antiques. Cambridge et Paris : Cambridge University Press et
Maison des Sciences de l'Homme.
Gordon B. et P. Marshall (eds.). 2000. The Place of the Dead. Death
and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Cambridge :
Cambridge University Press.
Hertz, Robert. 1907 [1928]. « Contribution à une étude sur la
représentation collective de la mort », in R. Hertz, Mélanges de
Sociologie Religieuse et Folklore: 1-98. Paris : Librairie Félix
Alcan.Humphreys 1981
Humphreys, S. C. & H. King. 1981. Mortality and immortality : The
anthropology and archaeology of death. Londres : Academic Press.
Sebesteny, Aniko. 2013. « Création collective d’une entité
immatérielle : la crémation à Bali », in Thévenet C., I. Rivoal, P.
Sellier, et F. Valentin (eds.)., op.cit. : 40-41.
Taylor, Anne-Christine. 1993. « Remembering to Forget. Identity,
Mourning and Memory Among the Jivaro », Man 28/4 : 661-662.
Thévenet C., I. Rivoal, P. Sellier, et F. Valentin (eds.). 2013 à
paraître. La chaîne opératoire funéraire. Ethnologie et archéologie de
la mort, Paris : De Boccard.
Verdery, Katherine. 1999. The Political Lives of Dead Bodies. Reburial
and Postsocialist Change. New York : Columbia University Press.
Vernant, Jean-Pierre. 1989. L’individu, la mort, l’amour : Soi-même et
l’autre en Grèce Ancienne. Paris : Gallimard (Folio Histoire).
Zempleni, András. 2011. « Le reliquaire de Batthyány : du culte des
reliques aux réenterrements politiques en Hongrie contemporaine », in
G. Vargyas (éd.), Passageways : From Hungarian ethnography to European
ethnology and sociocultural anthropology. Budapest : L’Harmattan :
23-89
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