Anthropology and Nostalgia [Paperback]

Nostalgia is intimately connected to the history of the social sciences in general and anthropology in particular, though finely grained ethnographies of nostalgia and loss are still scarce. Today, anthropologists have realized that nostalgia constitutes a fascinating object of study for exploring contemporary issues of the formation of identity in politics and history. Contributors to this volume consider the fabric of nostalgia in the fields of heritage and tourism, exile and diasporas, postcolonialism and postsocialism, business and economic exchange, social, ecological and religious movements, and nation building. They contribute to a better understanding of how individuals and groups commemorate their pasts, and how nostalgia plays a role in the process of remembering.

David Berlineris a Professor of Anthropology at Universit? Libre de Bruxelles. He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Guinea-Conakry and Laos. His topics of research are social memory, cultural transmission and the politics of heritage.

&this edited volume remains an important contribution to the increasing number of anthropologists who encounter affective remembrances of distant pasts. Particularly valuable are its methodological focus on the concrete discourses, materialities, social interactions, texts, and technologies through which nostalgia manifests. Scholars who work on memory, politics, affect, identity, and material culture will all find many valuable and challenging insights throughout the book.? Anthropos

[This volume] illustrates that nostalgia is an undeniable part of modern (if not general human) experience and that anthropology has a great deal to offer in understanding and critiquing its diverse forms, practices, and social and political implications.? Anthropology Review Database

Nostalgia is a central characteristic of our age. Gathering together ethnographic cases from lÃ#