Saris, A. Jamie (2002) The arts of memory Icon and structural violence in a Dublin 'underclass' housing estate. Anthropology Today, 18. pp. 14-19. ISSN 0268-540X

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Abstract

This paper deals with the complex relationships between, and some of the everyday practices that go into, remem- bering and forgetting within a conflicted political field. The object of this analysis is a set of murals in an eco- nomically and socially marginal housing estate on the out- skirts of Dublin, and some of the social activities that they either commemorate or pass over. This analysis requires an ‘archaeology’ of a sort, in the sense that both virtual and material layers have to be scraped away, not to reveal some deeper truth, but to outline the field of forces that create truth-effects within this context (Foucault 1973a, Rabinow 1996). If this process is conducted carefully with due regard for local knowledge, however, the rewards are high. An obscure wall in an unfashionable Dublin suburb that most people in the capital have never been to (and that many people would never want to visit), displays multiple and conflicting configurations of violence, resistance, community, ownership, even hope. To understand this wall, though, an entire local world needs to be outlined, and the connections between this local world and national and transnational forces need to be appreciated. Perhaps appropriately, the analysis begins and ends with a defaced tabula rasa.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	arts; memory; Icon; structural violence; Dublin;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Anthropology
Item ID:	8384
Depositing User:	Dr. A. Jamie Saris
Date Deposited:	28 Jun 2017 10:47
Journal or Publication Title:	Anthropology Today
Publisher:	Wiley
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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