“Objects carry social and personal information within a larger framework. They communicate relationships and mediate progress through the social world……In addition to information and ideas they can convey hidden cultural constraints, moral standards, and social fears” (McCracken 1988: 28). Material culture sheds light on how people understand themselves, they construct memories as they are invested with meanings and emotions, through their associations and usage. The objects themselves convey their own stories by the way they look, how they have worn out, the places they are torn, and the way they are used; all sketch a picture of their relationship with people.
The value ascribed to material culture is multi-layered in sentiments and functionality, the greater the emotions invested in an object, the greater its value. “We look through objects to see what they disclose about history, society, nature, or culture-above all, what they disclose about us…” (Brown 2001). They are capable of illustrating social changes, biographies, past cultures, memory studies, life histories, and so on which go beyond living, human societies. Objects that record death, or fall within its association and cosmologies should not be considered any differently.
This panel intends to discuss the phenomenon of death through the lens of materials, as objects that have long accompanied humans before and after death. The discussion will consider the material record of life at the margins, in the margins, through analysis and exploration of the materiality of death in the Himalayas. We invite submissions from any disciplinary focus, particularly anthropology, archaeology, history, and the environment.
