Mapping death, migration, and material culture: A case study of Igbo Nigerians

该项目的重点是纪念尼日利亚最大的族裔群体之一伊博人的习俗。特别是，它探讨了“恋物癖对象”的出现在这种做法都在尼日利亚和散居地。研究将探讨纪念的物质文化和纪念品的作用。这包括大规模生产的，通常是廉价制造的商品-杯子，开瓶器，塑料食品容器-这些都是分发给参加葬礼和守灵的人作为纪念品。这些物品在家中保留了几十年，但与文化地理学家和其他学者传统上研究的纪念物品（如珠宝、照片）不同，它们在家中并不占据特权地位，也没有特别小心地处理。他们每天都在使用，没有第二个想法。这个项目不仅要了解这些物品在家庭中的实际功能，还要了解它们在围绕死亡事件的文化习俗和表演中的作用。要做到这一点，就需要直接参与家庭内部的情感和感官体验，这是一个固有的性别空间。因此，本研究还将探讨这些相互关联的死亡场景及其物质支持之间的性别差异。本研究分析的一个中心点是了解随着移民的变化，伊格博人如何延续将死者留在家中的文化传统，这一传统在历史上是通过将家人埋葬在宅基地内来实现的。它将重点关注在尼日利亚和散居者之间双向传播的纪念品如何帮助谈判这些变化。生活在尼日利亚的老一代伊博人，以及许多在散居地定居了几十年的第一代移民，都是在20世纪60年代的尼日利亚内战期间长大的。这种暴力和流离失所的激烈时期不可避免地影响了对家庭，死亡和领土的文化态度，探索这如何塑造了当代伊格博文化，因此也将提供一个独特的视角，在散居死亡的做法。贡献的研究领域，主要集中在全球北方的背景下，这个项目将确定情感和精神意义是如何体现，灌输，并通过迄今为止被排除在外的文化体系中的对象来解释。该项目将侧重于采取更具包容性的研究方法，将无障碍性作为研究过程及其成果的中心。通过讲故事和口述历史，该项目将以一种使其适应研究“主题”并对研究“主题”负责的方式，探讨围绕埋葬和物质文化的持续传统和新兴规范。

This project focuses on memorialising practices of the Igbos, one of the largest ethnic groups in Nigeria. In particular, it explores the emergence of 'the fetish object' within such practices both in Nigeria and in the diaspora. The research will explore the material culture of memorialisation and the role of the souvenir. This includes mass-produced, often cheaply made, commodities - mugs, bottle openers, plastic food containers - which are distributed to attendees at funerals and wakes as tokens of remembrance. These objects remain in the home for decades but, unlike the memorial items traditionally studied by cultural geographers and other scholars (e.g. jewellery, photographs), they do not occupy a privileged place in the household, nor are they handled with special care. They are rather used daily without second thought. This project will seek to understand not only the practical function of these objects within the domestic home but also their role within the cultural practices and performances which surround the death event. Doing so will require engaging directly with emotional and sensory experiences within the domestic home, an inherently gendered space. The research will therefore also explore the gendered differences between how these interconnected deathscapes and their material supports are accessed and interpreted.A central point of analysis within this research will be understanding how, as migration is changing, Igbos are continuing the cultural tradition of keeping the dead within the home, a tradition which was historically fulfilled through the burial of family within the homestead. It will focus on how souvenirs, which travel bidirectionally between Nigeria and the diaspora, help negotiate these changes. Older Igbo generations living in Nigeria, and many of the first-generation immigrants who have been settled in the diaspora for several decades, grew up during the Nigerian civil war of the 1960s. Such intense periods of violence and displacement inevitably influence cultural attitudes towards home, death and territory, and exploring how this has shaped contemporary Igbo culture will therefore also offer a unique perspective on death practices in the diaspora.Contributing to a research field that has largely focussed on Global North contexts, this project will identify how emotional and spiritual meanings are embodied, imbued in, and interpreted through objects within cultural systems that have thus far been excluded. The project will focus on taking a more inclusive research methodology, by centring accessibility in both the research process and its outcomes. Through storytelling and oral histories, the project will approach the continuing traditions and emerging norms around burial and material culture in a way that makes it adaptable by and accountable to the research 'subjects'.