Grassroots memorials have become major areas of focus during times of trauma, danger, and social unrest. These improvised memorial assemblages continue to display new and more dynamic ways of representing collective and individual identities and in doing so reveal the steps that shape the national memories of those who struggle to come to terms with traumatic loss. This volume focuses on the hybrid quality of these temporary memorials as both monuments of mourning and as focal points for protest and expression of discontent. The broad range of case studies in this volume include anti-mafia shrines, Theo van Goghs memorial, September 11th memorials, March 11th shrines in Madrid, and Carlo Giuliani memorials in Genoa.

Cristina Sánchez-Carreterois an anthropologist and a staff researcher at The Institute of Heritage Sciences (Incipit) of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and holds a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on the role of heritage formation processes in contemporary societies. Currently, she is the coordinator of the CSIC team that participates in the Cultural Heritage and the Reconstruction of Identities after Conflict project, funded by the EU Seventh Framework Program.

List of Illustrations Preface

Introduction:Rethinking Memorialization: The Concept of Grassroots MemorialsPeter Jan Margry and Cristina Sánchez-Carretero

PART I: NEGOTIATING SOCIETAL VIOLENCE

Chapter 1.Difficult Remembrance: Memorializing Mafi a Victims in PalermoDeborah Puccio-Den

Chapter 2. Ritual Mediations of Violent Death: An Ethnography of the Theo van Gogh Memorial Site, AmsterdamIrene Stengs

Chapter 3.Between Commemoration and Social Activism: Spontaneous Shrines, Grassroots Memorialization, and the Public Ritualesque in DerryJack Santino

Chapter 4.Memorializing Shooters with Their Victims: Columbine, Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois UniversitySylvia Grider

PART II: CONTESTING OBJECTIONABLE DEATH

Chapter 5.Marking Death: Grief, Protest, and Politics after a Fatal Traffic AccidentMonika Rulfs

Chapter 6.Ghost Bikes: Memorialization and Protest on City StreetsRobert Thomas Dobler

Chapter 7.Mourning the Polish Pope in Polish CitiesEwa Klekot

Chapter 8.RememberingLa Tragedia: Commemorations of the 1999 Floods in Venezuela 208Sandrine Revet

PART III: SOCIABILITY AND REFLEXIVE ANTITERRORISM

Chapter 9.Street Shrines and the Writing of Disaster: 9/11, New York, 2001Béatrice Fraenkel

Chapter 10.The Madrid Train Bombings: Enacting the Emotional Body at the March 11 Grassroots MemorialsCristina Sánchez-Carretero

Chapter 11.Purification and Remembrance: Eastern and Western Ways of Dealing with the Bali BombingHuub de Jonge

PART IV: INSTRUMENTALIZING REPOSITORIES OF MEMORY

Chapter 12.September 11: Museums, Spontaneous Memorials, and HistoryJames B. Gardner

Chapter 13.Piazza Carlo Giuliani - G8 Summit, Genoa 2001: Death, Testimony, MemoryFabio Caffarena and Carlo Stiaccini

Chapter 14.Memorializing a Controversial Politician: The "Heritagization" of a Materialized Vox PopuliPeter Jan Margry

Notes on Contributors Index