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

这个项目的重点是纪念伊博人的习俗，伊博人是尼日利亚最大的民族之一。特别是，它探讨了在尼日利亚和散居海外的这种做法中“恋物对象”的出现。研究将探讨纪念的物质文化和纪念品的作用。这包括大量生产、通常成本低廉的商品——马克杯、开瓶器、塑料食品容器——这些商品在葬礼和守灵仪式上分发给与会者，作为纪念。这些物品在家中保存了几十年，但与传统上由文化地理学家和其他学者研究的纪念物品（如珠宝、照片）不同，它们在家庭中没有占据特权地位，也没有得到特别的照顾。他们每天都毫不犹豫地使用。该项目不仅试图了解这些物品在家庭中的实际功能，而且还试图了解它们在围绕死亡事件的文化习俗和表演中的作用。这样做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，该研究还将探讨如何访问和解释这些相互关联的死亡景观及其物质支持之间的性别差异。本研究的一个中心分析点将是了解随着移民的变化，伊博人如何继续将死者留在家中的文化传统，这一传统在历史上是通过在家园内埋葬家人来实现的。它将聚焦于纪念品如何在尼日利亚和海外侨民之间双向流通，帮助协商这些变化。生活在尼日利亚的老一辈伊博人，以及许多在海外定居了几十年的第一代移民，都是在20世纪60年代尼日利亚内战期间长大的。这种激烈的暴力和流离失所时期不可避免地影响了对家庭、死亡和领土的文化态度，因此，探索这如何塑造了当代伊博文化也将为散居海外的死亡习俗提供一个独特的视角。该项目为主要关注全球北方背景的研究领域做出了贡献，将确定情感和精神意义是如何体现的，如何通过迄今为止被排除在外的文化系统中的对象来渗透和解释。该项目将侧重于采取更具包容性的研究方法，将可及性作为研究过程和结果的中心。通过讲故事和口述历史，该项目将以一种使其适应并对研究“主题”负责的方式，接近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'.