DME for Peace Thursday talk Follow that car! Telling the story of conflict & peacebuilding through material objects Roger Mac Ginty University of Manchester roger.macginty@manchester.ac.uk
Crisis of access for researchers – very difficult to access many conflict zones
The hunt for alternatives
Rather than following words or people – why not follow objects?
A History of the World in 100 objects
“The social life of things” Arjun Appadurai, The social life of things: commodities in cultural perspective ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 3. ‘The object becomes a document not just of the world for which it was made, but for the later periods which altered it.’ Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects (London: Penguin Books, 2012) p. xxi.
A head-hurting thought ‘objects create subjects much more than the other way around’ - Daniel Miller, The Comfort of Things (Cambridge: Polity, 2008) p. 298
• At around 11:00hrs on 11 June 2008, one (1) Land Rover pickup vehicle rented by [name of INGO removed] was carjacked by unknown armed bandits at water point inside the IDPs Camp in Shangil Tobay. The INGO national staff member, who was driving the car, is missing. • - UN report on carjacking in Darfur, 2008.
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