Memory Work: Archaeologies of Material Practices

by Barbara J. Mills (Editor), William H. Walker (Editor)

Memory making is a social practice that links people and things together across time and space and ultimately has material consequences. The intersection of matter and social practice becomes archaeologically visible through the deposits created during social activities. Memories are made, not just experienced, and their material traces allow us to understand the materiality of these practices. Indeed, materiality is not just material culture repackaged. Instead, it is about the interaction of humans and materials within a set of cultural relationships. In this book the authors focus on a set of case studies that illustrate how social memories were made through repeated, patterned, and engaged social practices. "Memory work" also refers to the interpretive activities scholars perform when studying social memory. The contributors to this volume share a common goal to map out the different ways in which to study social memories in past societies programmatically and tangibly.

320 pages, Paperback

First published June 30, 2008

Reviews

[Traci · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read bits and pieces of this since it came out, but finally finished the whole thing. In general it adheres the high standards of other SAR volumes, and the chapters are all long, detailed and fairly well polished. Certain familiar authors seem to have published the same thing here that they have been saying in other volumes, and overall I didnt find it as innovative as I had hoped it would be. I prefer Archaeologies of Memory as a more lively, less pretentious, collection on this topic.