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Call for paper
MORTUARY TRADITIONS
Memory, protocols, monuments
Interdisciplinary conference organised by the
Maison Archéologie & Ethnologie, René-Ginouvès,
Paris, Nanterre
18-19-20 June 2014
Organised by Grégory Delaplace and Frédérique Valentin
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]).
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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, to be published).
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.
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
---------------------------------------------
Isabelle Rivoal
Chargée de recherche au CNRS
Laboratoire d'Ethnologie et de Sociologie Comparative (UMR7186)
Directrice Scientifique Adjointe
Maison Archéologie & Ethnologie - René Ginouvès
21, allée de l’université 92023 Nanterre cedex
01 46 69 24 75
[log in to unmask]
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