Material Culture and Modern Conflict - Böcker

This book discusses the archaeology and heritage of the German military presence in Finnish Lapland during the Second World War, framing this northern, overlooked WWII material legacy from the nearly forgotten Arctic front as ‘dark heritage’ – a concrete reminder of Finns siding with the Nazis, often seen as polluting ‘war junk’ that ruins the ‘pristine natural beauty’ of Lapland’s wilderness. The scholarship herein provides fresh perspectives to contemporary discussions on heritage perception and ownership, indigenous rights, community empowerment, relational ontologies and also the ongoing worldwide refugee crisis.

Out of the numerous books and articles on the Third Reich, few address its material culture, and fewer still discuss the phenomenon of Nazi memorabilia. This is all the more surprising given that Nazi symbols, so central to sustaining Hitler’s movement, continue to live long after the collapse of his 12-year Reich. Neither did Nazi ideology die; far-right populists would like to see the swastika flown over the White House or Buckingham Palace. Against a backdrop of right-wing extremism, military re-enactors think nothing of dressing up in Waffen-SS uniforms and romanticising the Third Reich in the name of living history. Auctioneers are prepared to hammer down Nazi artefacts to the highest bidder, but who is buying them, and why do they do so? Should collectors be allowed to decorate their homes with Nazi flags?The Anarchy of Nazi Memorabilia begins by examining the creation and context of Nazi artefacts and symbols during the volatile Weimar Republic to their wider distribution during the Third Reich. There were few people in Nazi Germany who did not wear a badge or uniform of some sort. Whether it be mothers, soldiers or concentration camp inmates, they were all branded. The chapter on the Second World War demonstrates that although German soldiers were cynical about being given medals in exchange for freezing in Russia. They still continued to fight, for which more decorations were awarded. A large proportion of this book is therefore given to the meaning that Nazi symbols had before Nazi Germany was eventually defeated in May 1945. Equally important, however, and one of the characteristics of this book, is the analysis of the meaning and value of Nazi material culture over time. The interpreters of Nazi symbols that this book focuses on are internationally based private collectors and traders. Sustained attention is given in a chapter outlining the development of the collectors’ market for Nazi memorabilia from 1945 onwards. No matter how much collectors go out of their way to paint the hobby in a positive light, their activities do not fully escape the troubled past of the material that they desire. So contested are Nazi symbols that another chapter is devoted to the ethics and morals of destroying or preserving them. The issues surrounding private versus public custody and ownership of Nazi artefacts are also discussed. So far, in this book, the examination of Nazi artefacts has been restricted to physical objects within societies that are generally aware of the consequences of Hitlerism. As we increasingly move into the digital age, however, and there are few survivors of the Second World War left to relay their horrific experiences, the final chapter contemplates the future of Nazi symbols both digitally and physically, fake or real.This book will appeal to all those interested in the Third Reich, Nazi ideology, Neo-Nazism, perceptions of the Nazis post-1945, modern European history and political symbolism. It will also hold particular appeal to those interested in the collecting and trading of contested and highly emotive artefacts. It considers aesthetics, authenticity, commodification, gift exchange, life histories of people and objects, materiality and value theory.

With a heritage dating back to the mid-seventeenth century, the Royal Marines have accrued a rich history of rituals, artefacts and material culture that is consciously deployed in order to define and shape the institution both historically and going forward into an uncertain future. Drawing upon this heritage, Mark Burchell offers a unique method of understanding how the Royal Marines draw upon this material culture in order to help transform ordinary labour power to political agency comprising acts of controlled and sustained violence. He demonstrates how a barrage of objects and items - including uniforms, weapons, landscapes, architecture, personal kit, drills, rituals, and iconography - are deployed in order successfully to integrate the recruits into the Royal Marines' culture. It is argued that this material culture is a vital tool with which to imprint the military's own image on new recruits as they embark on a process of de-individualisation. Having been granted unprecedented access to the Commando Training Centre at Lympstone as an anthropologist, Burchell observed an intake of recruits throughout their demanding and exhausting year-long training programme. The resulting book presents to the academic community for the first time, a theorised in-depth account of a relatively unexplored social community and how its material culture creates and reifies new military identities. This path-breaking interdisciplinary analysis provides fresh understanding of the multiple processes of military enculturation through a meticulous revision of the relationships that exist between disciplinary and punishment practices; violence and masculinity; narratives and personhood; and will explore how these issues are understood by recruits through their practical application of body to physical labour, and by the cues of their surrounding material culture.

This book discusses the archaeology and heritage of the German military presence in Finnish Lapland during the Second World War, framing this northern, overlooked WWII material legacy from the nearly forgotten Arctic front as ‘dark heritage’ – a concrete reminder of Finns siding with the Nazis, often seen as polluting ‘war junk’ that ruins the ‘pristine natural beauty’ of Lapland’s wilderness. The scholarship herein provides fresh perspectives to contemporary discussions on heritage perception and ownership, indigenous rights, community empowerment, relational ontologies and also the ongoing worldwide refugee crisis.

The Great War was a turning point of the twentieth century, giving birth to a new, modern, and industrial approach to warfare that changed the world forever. The remembrance, awareness, and knowledge of the conflict and, most importantly, of those who participated and were affected by it, altered from country to country, and in some cases has been almost entirely forgotten.New research strategies have emerged to help broaden our understanding of the First World War. Multidisciplinary approaches have been applied to material culture and conflict landscapes, from archive sources analysis and aerial photography to remote sensing, GIS and field research. Working within the context of a material and archival understanding of war, this book combines papers from different study fields that present interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches towards researching the First World War and its legacies, with particular concentration on the central and eastern European theatres of war.

This book is about the conflict which resolved the Greek–Turkish War of 1919–1922: the Great Offensive. On 26 August 1922, the army of the GNA executed the Great Offensive against the Greek defence line extending from the Bay of Gemlik to the Meander River. The Turkish Forces split the Greek Army into two large groups, annihilated one of the groups in the field at the Battle of Dumlupınar on 30 August and pursued the remaining forces of the Greek Army towards the Aegean and Marmara coasts until 18 September. Within these 24 days, the face of Western Anatolia changed unalterably: numerous towns, villages and cities of Western Anatolia were reduced to ashes.This conflict was a turning point in the histories of Turkey and Greece, as it played a significant role in shaping the present-day demographic and geopolitical landscapes of both nations. It resulted in a population exchange in 1923 that dramatically altered the lives of Muslims in Greece and Greek Orthodox people in Turkey and paved the way to the foundation of the Republic of Turkey. Despite the outcome of this war and the existence of a rich literature on its military and political history, the landscapes, memoryscapes and material culture have not been systematically investigated. This book bridges that gap via an archaeological, historical and oral-historical study of the Great Offensive and its aftermath. With its wide chronological perspective, this book is not a pure analysis of a historical war, it is instead a journey into the foundation myth of the Turkish Republic and the ideological foundations of the Turkish state.

This book is about the conflict which resolved the Greek–Turkish War of 1919–1922: the Great Offensive. On 26 August 1922, the army of the GNA executed the Great Offensive against the Greek defence line extending from the Bay of Gemlik to the Meander River. The Turkish Forces split the Greek Army into two large groups, annihilated one of the groups in the field at the Battle of Dumlupınar on 30 August and pursued the remaining forces of the Greek Army towards the Aegean and Marmara coasts until 18 September. Within these 24 days, the face of Western Anatolia changed unalterably: numerous towns, villages and cities of Western Anatolia were reduced to ashes.This conflict was a turning point in the histories of Turkey and Greece, as it played a significant role in shaping the present-day demographic and geopolitical landscapes of both nations. It resulted in a population exchange in 1923 that dramatically altered the lives of Muslims in Greece and Greek Orthodox people in Turkey and paved the way to the foundation of the Republic of Turkey. Despite the outcome of this war and the existence of a rich literature on its military and political history, the landscapes, memoryscapes and material culture have not been systematically investigated. This book bridges that gap via an archaeological, historical and oral-historical study of the Great Offensive and its aftermath. With its wide chronological perspective, this book is not a pure analysis of a historical war, it is instead a journey into the foundation myth of the Turkish Republic and the ideological foundations of the Turkish state.

How do children cope when their world is transformed by war? This book draws on memory narratives to construct an historical anthropology of childhood in Second World Britain, focusing on objects and spaces such as gas masks, air raid shelters and bombed-out buildings. In their struggles to cope with the fears and upheavals of wartime, with families divided and familiar landscapes lost or transformed, children reimagined and reshaped these material traces of conflict into toys, treasures and playgrounds. This study of the material worlds of wartime childhood offers a unique viewpoint into an extraordinary period in history with powerful resonances across global conflicts into the present day.

Out of the numerous books and articles on the Third Reich, few address its material culture, and fewer still discuss the phenomenon of Nazi memorabilia. This is all the more surprising given that Nazi symbols, so central to sustaining Hitler’s movement, continue to live long after the collapse of his 12-year Reich. Neither did Nazi ideology die; far-right populists would like to see the swastika flown over the White House or Buckingham Palace. Against a backdrop of right-wing extremism, military re-enactors think nothing of dressing up in Waffen-SS uniforms and romanticising the Third Reich in the name of living history. Auctioneers are prepared to hammer down Nazi artefacts to the highest bidder, but who is buying them, and why do they do so? Should collectors be allowed to decorate their homes with Nazi flags?The Anarchy of Nazi Memorabilia begins by examining the creation and context of Nazi artefacts and symbols during the volatile Weimar Republic to their wider distribution during the Third Reich. There were few people in Nazi Germany who did not wear a badge or uniform of some sort. Whether it be mothers, soldiers or concentration camp inmates, they were all branded. The chapter on the Second World War demonstrates that although German soldiers were cynical about being given medals in exchange for freezing in Russia. They still continued to fight, for which more decorations were awarded. A large proportion of this book is therefore given to the meaning that Nazi symbols had before Nazi Germany was eventually defeated in May 1945. Equally important, however, and one of the characteristics of this book, is the analysis of the meaning and value of Nazi material culture over time. The interpreters of Nazi symbols that this book focuses on are internationally based private collectors and traders. Sustained attention is given in a chapter outlining the development of the collectors’ market for Nazi memorabilia from 1945 onwards. No matter how much collectors go out of their way to paint the hobby in a positive light, their activities do not fully escape the troubled past of the material that they desire. So contested are Nazi symbols that another chapter is devoted to the ethics and morals of destroying or preserving them. The issues surrounding private versus public custody and ownership of Nazi artefacts are also discussed. So far, in this book, the examination of Nazi artefacts has been restricted to physical objects within societies that are generally aware of the consequences of Hitlerism. As we increasingly move into the digital age, however, and there are few survivors of the Second World War left to relay their horrific experiences, the final chapter contemplates the future of Nazi symbols both digitally and physically, fake or real.This book will appeal to all those interested in the Third Reich, Nazi ideology, Neo-Nazism, perceptions of the Nazis post-1945, modern European history and political symbolism. It will also hold particular appeal to those interested in the collecting and trading of contested and highly emotive artefacts. It considers aesthetics, authenticity, commodification, gift exchange, life histories of people and objects, materiality and value theory.

More than two thousand people from the British Channel Islands were deported to and interned in Germany during the Second World War, making up as many as 60% of all interned British citizens in occupied territory during this period.This book carries out an in-depth analysis of artwork, objects, oral testimonies, archives, poetry, letters, diaries and memoirs gathered from the internees and drawing from around one hundred collections. The work is based on over 15 years of research and interviews with more than 65 former internees, and explores analytical themes and narratives of placemaking, resistance, communities, food and cooking. It also proposes new concepts and categories to help us understand objects that distinguish the experience of internment.This book will be of great value for scholars and museum professionals, as well as postgraduate students in the field of Conflict Archaeology and scholars of the Second World War. Cumulatively, this materiality comprises one of the major surviving assemblages of internees to emerge from the war, comparable in size, quality and importance with that from other theatres of war.

More than two thousand people from the British Channel Islands were deported to and interned in Germany during the Second World War, making up as many as 60% of all interned British citizens in occupied territory during this period.This book carries out an in-depth analysis of artwork, objects, oral testimonies, archives, poetry, letters, diaries and memoirs gathered from the internees and drawing from around one hundred collections. The work is based on over 15 years of research and interviews with more than 65 former internees, and explores analytical themes and narratives of placemaking, resistance, communities, food and cooking. It also proposes new concepts and categories to help us understand objects that distinguish the experience of internment.This book will be of great value for scholars and museum professionals, as well as postgraduate students in the field of Conflict Archaeology and scholars of the Second World War. Cumulatively, this materiality comprises one of the major surviving assemblages of internees to emerge from the war, comparable in size, quality and importance with that from other theatres of war.

This book provides the first account of the Isonzo/Soča frontline through the multidisciplinary lens of modern conflict archaeology, offering unique insights into multilayered conflict landscapes of the Soča Front.Archaeological research into the sites of the Soča Front of the First World War in present‑day Slovenia has been gathering momentum for more than a decade now. The main chapters are accompanied by a historical and theoretical overview of Great War archaeology and modern conflict archaeology in Europe, with a focus on Slovenia and Central and Eastern Europe. Readers are provided with a historical summary of the battles on the Soča Front to enhance understanding of the multilayered conflict landscapes examined in three central chapters. The first one focuses on evolving attitudes toward the Soča Front’s heritage and the gradual militarisation of the landscape up until the outbreak of hostilities in late May 1915. The second main chapter explores the archaeological aspects of the conflict landscape from 1915 to 1917, including the landscape of the dead, memory, and the salvage of useful war matériel after the conflict ended. The third central chapter analyses the battlefield on Mt. Rombon as a multilayered conflict landscape through the lens of modern conflict archaeology.This book is intended for all those interested in the archaeology and history of the somewhat lesser‑known Soča Front of the First World War. Due to its focus on the topic of modern conflict archaeology, this book is aimed at archaeologists, historians, anthropologists, geographers, and others who study conflict landscapes, material culture, and the multilayered legacies of the First World War.

This book explores the material traces of mass crimes committed by Nazi Germans in Gdańsk Pomerania, Poland, during the Second World War, offering a unique archaeological perspective on these atrocities and their enduring impact on social memory.This book is the first example of using an archaeological approach to study the material traces of mass crimes in Gdańsk Pomerania and the social memory of these tragic events. The work is based on several years of intensive desk and field research, which led to the discovery of the remains of about 1,000 victims and the recovery of thousands of pieces of material evidence of the crimes. The applied research methodology and data analysis used within the book are informed by dozens of ethnographic interviews, participant observations and the analysis of several thousand historical documents. The monograph highlights the achievements of Polish archaeology of the contemporary past and introduces a new framework for perceiving and examining mass crimes from the Second World War. The active, inclusive, social and cultural value of archaeology in the context of the investigation of mass crimes is part of the theoretical and practical framework of the book.Providing a comprehensive resource for anyone seeking to explore the intersection of archaeology, history, and the legacy of mass crimes, this book is intended for students and researchers of archaeology, history, cultural anthropology and forensic anthropology interested in mass crimes, mass graves, the Second World War, and the materiality and social memory of historical atrocities.

Ambient History presents the role urban fabric plays in constructing the wartime history of Warsaw. It focuses on history embedded in matter and details the practices followed by municipal institutions, artists and historical reenactors who pull history out of the background through their actions.The book offers a new perspective on the material history of the city. It presents the concept of ambient history – history hidden in the background, in the landscape – waiting to be utilised by individuals coming into contact with the fabric of the city. It draws on anthropological considerations of history which embrace non-academic methods of conceptualising the past and processes of democratising history. The book has two principal objectives. One is to give theoretical grounding to the term ‘ambient history’, which facilitates the conceptualisation of material history and the role experiencing it plays in the process of constructing history. The other is to try and determine the limits of the heuristic potential of posthumanist reflection on materiality in reference to research focused on the making of history.Therefore, the book is valuable reading for researchers studying non-academic methods of curating history: scholars investigating materiality and things, anthropologists of history, scholars of heritage studies, experts in urban studies, historians focused on public history and archaeologists analysing the discipline’s theory.

This monograph explores British Conflict Related Metal Boxes (CRMBs) and the memories they contain that come directly from, or are influenced by, the First World War.This book identifies for the reader many of the ‘tins’ and other CRMBs from the period of the First World War that were used to convey ‘comforts’ to the soldiers and sailors serving during the war. It details, often for the first time in print, the background context to the ‘gift-giving’ and places it in context regarding funding, eligibility, design and production. All of the examples given in the book (with the exception of one item that is so rare that it is represented only by a photograph) are taken from the author’s own collection which has allowed for a more in-depth examination and analysis of the materiality of these objects. So many of these objects are either so rare or are held in museums or collections which make understanding how they ‘feel’, far beyond the reach of literature or internet image accession can ever achieve alone.This book is for students and researchers of modern conflict archaeology, material culture, military history and social history as well as collectors of militaria, antiques and social history objects.

This book examines the remarkably preserved Soča/Isonzo Front battlefield, exploring how its material heritage has shaped World War I (WW1) remembrance across changing political regimes along the Italian-Slovenian border.It introduces the reader to how conflict landscapes function as independent agents of remembrance, transcending political changes and national narratives. The book offers a multidisciplinary approach that combines anthropology, archaeology and memory studies to trace the ‘social life’ of this lesser-known WW1 battlefield. By examining material heritage through multiple lenses, it reveals how physical remnants continue to shape collective memory and cultural understanding of the conflict, providing fresh perspectives on war commemoration beyond traditional historical accounts.This book is written for scholars and students in the fields of memory studies, military history, heritage preservation and modern conflict archaeology. It will appeal to researchers interested in WW1, particularly those focusing on the South-Eastern European theatre and the Italian Front. Libraries supporting programs in anthropology, European history, cultural heritage studies and war studies will find this an essential addition to their collections. The book is also suitable for heritage professionals working with battlefield preservation and commemoration.

The Great War was a turning point of the twentieth century, giving birth to a new, modern, and industrial approach to warfare that changed the world forever. The remembrance, awareness, and knowledge of the conflict and, most importantly, of those who participated and were affected by it, altered from country to country, and in some cases has been almost entirely forgotten.New research strategies have emerged to help broaden our understanding of the First World War. Multidisciplinary approaches have been applied to material culture and conflict landscapes, from archive sources analysis and aerial photography to remote sensing, GIS and field research. Working within the context of a material and archival understanding of war, this book combines papers from different study fields that present interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches towards researching the First World War and its legacies, with particular concentration on the central and eastern European theatres of war.

The study of conflict archaeology has developed rapidly over the last decade, fuelled in equal measure by technological advances and creative analytical frameworks. Nowhere is this truer than in the inter-disciplinary fields of archaeological practice that combine traditional sources such as historical photographs and maps with 3D digital topographic data from Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) and large scale geophysical prospection. For twentieth-century conflict landscapes and their surviving archaeological remains, these developments have encouraged a shift from a site oriented approach towards landscape-scaled research. This volume brings together an wide range of perspectives, setting traditional approaches that draw on historical and contemporary aerial photographs alongside cutting-edge prospection techniques, cross-disciplinary analyses and innovative methods of presenting this material to audiences. Essays from a range of disciplines (archaeology, history, geography, heritage and museum studies) studying conflict landscapes across the globe throughout the twentieth century, all draw on aerial and landscape perspectives to past conflicts and their legacy and the complex issues for heritage management. Organized in four parts, the first three sections take a broadly chronological approach, exploring the use of aerial evidence to expand our understanding of the two World Wars and the Cold War. The final section explores ways that the aerial perspective can be utilized to represent historical landscapes to a wide audience. With case studies ranging from the Western Front to the Cold War, Ireland to Russia, this volume demonstrates how an aerial perspective can both support and challenge traditional archaeological and historical analysis, providing an innovative new means of engaging with the material culture of conflict and commemoration.

Seventy years after the end of the Second World War we still do not fully appreciate the intensity of the lived experience of people and communities involved in resistance movements and subjected to German occupation. Yet the enduring conjunction between individuals, things and place cannot be understated: from plaques on the wall to the beloved yellowing relics of private museums, materiality is paramount to any understanding of conflict experience and its poetics. This book reasserts the role of the senses, the imagination and emotion in the Italian war experience and its remembrance practices by tracing a cultural geography of the everyday material worlds of the conflict, and by digging deep into the multifaceted interweaving of place, person and conflict dynamics. Loneliness, displacement and paranoia were all emotional states shared by resistance activists and their civilian supporters. But what about the Fascists? And the Germans? In a civil war and occupation where shifting allegiances and betrayal were frequent, traditional binary codes of friend-foe cannot exist uncritically. This book incorporates these different actors’ perceptions, their competing and discordant materialities, and their shared – yet different – sense of loss and placelessness through witness accounts, storytelling and memoirs.

How do children cope when their world is transformed by war? This book draws on memory narratives to construct an historical anthropology of childhood in Second World Britain, focusing on objects and spaces such as gas masks, air raid shelters and bombed-out buildings. In their struggles to cope with the fears and upheavals of wartime, with families divided and familiar landscapes lost or transformed, children reimagined and reshaped these material traces of conflict into toys, treasures and playgrounds. This study of the material worlds of wartime childhood offers a unique viewpoint into an extraordinary period in history with powerful resonances across global conflicts into the present day.

The study of conflict archaeology has developed rapidly over the last decade, fuelled in equal measure by technological advances and creative analytical frameworks. Nowhere is this truer than in the inter-disciplinary fields of archaeological practice that combine traditional sources such as historical photographs and maps with 3D digital topographic data from Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) and large scale geophysical prospection. For twentieth-century conflict landscapes and their surviving archaeological remains, these developments have encouraged a shift from a site oriented approach towards landscape-scaled research. This volume brings together an wide range of perspectives, setting traditional approaches that draw on historical and contemporary aerial photographs alongside cutting-edge prospection techniques, cross-disciplinary analyses and innovative methods of presenting this material to audiences. Essays from a range of disciplines (archaeology, history, geography, heritage and museum studies) studying conflict landscapes across the globe throughout the twentieth century, all draw on aerial and landscape perspectives to past conflicts and their legacy and the complex issues for heritage management. Organized in four parts, the first three sections take a broadly chronological approach, exploring the use of aerial evidence to expand our understanding of the two World Wars and the Cold War. The final section explores ways that the aerial perspective can be utilized to represent historical landscapes to a wide audience. With case studies ranging from the Western Front to the Cold War, Ireland to Russia, this volume demonstrates how an aerial perspective can both support and challenge traditional archaeological and historical analysis, providing an innovative new means of engaging with the material culture of conflict and commemoration.

With a heritage dating back to the mid-seventeenth century, the Royal Marines have accrued a rich history of rituals, artefacts and material culture that is consciously deployed in order to define and shape the institution both historically and going forward into an uncertain future. Drawing upon this heritage, Mark Burchell offers a unique method of understanding how the Royal Marines draw upon this material culture in order to help transform ordinary labour power to political agency comprising acts of controlled and sustained violence. He demonstrates how a barrage of objects and items - including uniforms, weapons, landscapes, architecture, personal kit, drills, rituals, and iconography - are deployed in order successfully to integrate the recruits into the Royal Marines' culture. It is argued that this material culture is a vital tool with which to imprint the military's own image on new recruits as they embark on a process of de-individualisation. Having been granted unprecedented access to the Commando Training Centre at Lympstone as an anthropologist, Burchell observed an intake of recruits throughout their demanding and exhausting year-long training programme. The resulting book presents to the academic community for the first time, a theorised in-depth account of a relatively unexplored social community and how its material culture creates and reifies new military identities. This path-breaking interdisciplinary analysis provides fresh understanding of the multiple processes of military enculturation through a meticulous revision of the relationships that exist between disciplinary and punishment practices; violence and masculinity; narratives and personhood; and will explore how these issues are understood by recruits through their practical application of body to physical labour, and by the cues of their surrounding material culture.