Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Confinement And Detention In Political And Social Archaeology, Adrian T. Myers, Gabriel Moshenska

Adrian Myers

No abstract provided.

Prisoners Of War And Dreams Of Freedom: Dugout Canoes At A Second World War Work Camp In Manitoba, Canada, Adrian Myers, Timothy Dodson

Adrian Myers

During the Second World War, nearly 34,000 German Prisoners of War (PoWs) were transferred from British to Canadian control, and Canada thus hastily set up several large PoW camps and smaller satellite camps. PoWs filled leisure time with hobbies and crafts such as theatre, painting, model ship building, and woodworking. At Riding Mountain Work Camp, a forestry work camp in Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba, PoWs were even allowed to build and use dugout log canoes on a nearby stream and lake. Archaeological fieldwork at the site revealed that at least four of these canoes are still extant in the …

An Introduction To Archaeologies Of Internment, Gabriel Moshenska, Adrian Myers

Adrian Myers

In this opening chapter, we introduce the developing field of archaeologies of internment. We first illustrate the prevalence of modern forms of institutional internment around the world since the final decades of the nineteenth century. Second, we offer a tentative definition of "internment” and describe what is meant by an “archaeology of internment,” including a review of previous research in the field. Third, we situate the archaeology of internment within an interdisciplinary context, and discuss some of its potential strengths and unique contributions. Fourth, and finally, we introduce and contextualize the chapters in this volume, and suggest some possible directions …

Edited Book: Archaeologies Of Internment, Adrian Myers, Gabriel Moshenska

Adrian Myers

The internment of civilian and military prisoners became an increasingly common feature of conflicts in the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. Prison camps, though often hastily constructed and just as quickly destroyed, have left their marks in the archaeological record. Due to both their temporary nature and their often sensitive political contexts, places of internment present a unique challenge to archaeologists and heritage managers.

As archaeologists have begun to explore the material remains of internment using a range of methods, these interdisciplinary studies have demonstrated the potential to connect individual memories and historical debates to the fragmentary material remains. …

The Things Of Auschwitz, Adrian T. Myers

Adrian Myers

This is a revised version of my 2007 article "Portable Material Culture and Death Factory Auschwitz".

Bodies And Things Confined: Archaeological Approaches To Control And Detention, Adrian Myers

Adrian Myers

No abstract provided.

Between Memory And Materiality: An Archaeological Approach To Studying The Nazi Concentration Camps, Adrian Myers

Adrian Myers

By its very nature, historical narrative that is rooted exclusively in textual sources is destined to be more linear, more univocal, and less equipped to deal with the problematic. On the other hand, due to its unique abilities and approaches, historical archaeology thrives on the tensions inherent to any attempt to understand past and present experience. In this article I negotiate between two approaches to studying the concentration camps of the Third Reich—one canonical the other experimental. It is suggested that when studying the camps, we are faced with a series of tensions: between past and present, between remembering and …

Portable Material Culture And Death Factory Auschwitz, Adrian Myers

Adrian Myers

Like any other factory, the death factory of Auschwitz consumed primary materials and produced secondary products. Unique to Auschwitz, though, is that the primary material consumed was human life; not just the life of the breathing human body, but also the material possessions associated with that life. The detritus of this most efficient genocide – clothing, jewellery, food, corpses – was appropriated and put to new uses by the SS and the prisoners. Others have recognised the various postwar material cultural outcomes of the camp: the writing, the film, the theatre, the art, the tourism. This article, however, demonstrates that …