Making the Past Past

Objects and the Spatialization of Time in Tamilnadu

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2582013
AutoresDiane P Mines (autor correspondente)
Ano1997
Volume70
Fascículo4
Páginas173
Data de publicação1997-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAnthropological Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0003-5491 • E-ISSN: 1534-1518
EditoraJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3317224
OpenAlexW2326544454
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas9
Referências citadas17

This article is a preliminary analysis of the relations among time, space, and action in Tamil South India. Unlike common historiographical notions of time which presuppose a clean break between past and present, at least one mode of Tamil temporal thinking presupposes intertwined continuity between past and present, where past acts are understood to endure as material realities that stick (ottu) to actors' bodies, pass on to their descendants, and sometimes inhibit capacity for action. In order to make acts finally past, persons dispose of their material traces in a two-part process: they transfer the enduring action trace from their body to an object, then they send that object to an exterior (veliye or puram) place. This spatial removal of the material traces of past actions achieves at the same time a temporal removal. Hence, temporal distinctions are made through spatial operations, and time, space, and human action are shown to be mutually implicated

Genealogy · Geography · Sociology · Spatialization · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Asian Studies and History · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History