Traces, Spectres and Fragments: working with quiet histories of conflict.
November 8th 2023
This paper is a methodological and ethical reflection on the work I have been doing since 2011 in eastern Poland, alongside more recent work on revolutionary heritage sites in Ireland. In particular this paper looks at the complications of conducting anthropological research in places marked by centuries of conflict, pogroms, displacement, and genocide.
The paper addresses the afterlife of acts of violence in two places (Ireland and Poland) where there has been no formal process of reconciliation. Yet these are not places where a single violent act has visibly transformed public space. Rather they are “quiet” post-conflict zones. Quiet post-conflict zones are understudied places where seeming conviviality masks unresolved conflicts. Working in them involves attention to the material and social absences and to the silences that enable the appearance of peace in these societies, as well as the moments where contentious traces reveal unresolved trauma.
This paper will discuss religious festivals, unmade memorials, tall tales, local building works, and my own failures as an archivist, I want to take seriously the ethical quandaries of everyday anthropological fieldwork. Believing that these quotient labours constrain our conceptual work. Reflecting on recent anthropological works on witnessing, traces, and absence the paper untangles the anthropological urge to act as witness and sometimes detective in areas where the legacy of violence remains unresolved. The paper contends that starting from an ethics of fragments can be an opportunity rather than a constraint for anthropologists.
Aimee Joyce Anthropology 