This rich text provides a strong theoretical framework for anthropologists and archaeologists studying material culture.
What happens when these objects are destroyed, by war, natural disaster, or other historical events? An Anthropology of Absence Divided into three sections, this volume uses the "presence" of absence to compare cultural perceptions of: material qualities and created memory, the mind/body connection, temporality, and death. Through detailed explanations of eleven international case studies, the contributions reveal that the absence of objects can be just as telling as their presence, while the objects created to memorialize a loss also have important cultural implications.