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Tombs, Burial and Belonging in Jamaica

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2390838
AutoresHeather A Horst (0000-0002-7391-7616, University College London, UK, autor correspondente)
Ano2004
Volume9
Fascículo1
Páginas11-26
Data de publicação2004-03-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Material Culture (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1359-1835 • E-ISSN: 1460-3586
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1359183504041087
OpenAlexW2128415405
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas13
Referências citadas17

This article is concerned with the construction of ancestry in Jamaica. Based upon a comparison of burial tombs in inalienable, 'ancestral' family land as well as in churchyards and cemeteries, I explore how the painted, polished or embellished cement structures mediate the relationship between people and land, a primary locus of identity in the Caribbean. Examining the ways in which the tombs are decorated and augmented, I argue that the creation, design and redesign of the tomb and its facade are important for the declaration of personhood as well as the positioning of the individual within the family. However, ancestral status is ultimately realized through the neglect and disintegration of these surfaces, the exposed grey concrete materially reuniting the deceased with the land

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Colonialism · Declaration · Ethnology · Genealogy · Geography · Identity (music · Personhood · Pilgrimage · Political science · Sociology · Anthropology · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law · Urban and Rural Development Challenges