Grassroots Memorials The Politics of Memorializing Traumatic Death [Hardcover]

Grassroots memorials have become major areas of focus during times of trauma, danger, and social unrest. These improvised memorial assemblages continue to display new and more dynamic ways of representing collective and individual identities and in doing so reveal the steps that shape the national memories of those who struggle to come to terms with traumatic loss. This volume focuses on the hybrid quality of these temporary memorials as both monuments of mourning and as focal points for protest and expression of discontent. The broad range of case studies in this volume include anti-mafia shrines, Theo van Goghs memorial, September 11th memorials, March 11th shrines in Madrid, and Carlo Giuliani memorials in Genoa.

List of Illustrations
Preface

Introduction:Rethinking Memorialization: The Concept of Grassroots Memorials
Peter Jan Margry and Cristina S?nchez-Carretero

PART I: NEGOTIATING SOCIETAL VIOLENCE

Chapter 1.Difficult Remembrance: Memorializing Mafi a Victims in Palermo
Deborah Puccio-Den

Chapter 2.Ritual Mediations of Violent Death: An Ethnography of the Theo van Gogh Memorial Site, Amsterdam
Irene Stengs

Chapter 3.Between Commemoration and Social Activism: Spontaneous Shrines, Grassroots Memorialization, and the Public Ritualesque in Derry
Jack Santino

Chapter 4.Memorializing Shooters with Their Victims: Columbine, Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois University
Sylvia Grider

PART II: CONTESTING OBJECTIONABLE DEATH

Chapter 5.Marking Death: Grief, Protest, and Politics after a Fatal Traffic Accident
Monika Rulfs

Chapter 6.Ghost Bikes: Memorialization and Protest on City Streets
Robert Thomas Dobler

Chapter 7.Mourning the PolS°