by Prof. C. Nadia Seremetakis
University of the Peloponnese
This three part presentation synthesizes fifteen years of ethnographic fieldwork experience and writing in and for the Southern Peloponnese, starting with a discussion-analysis of the mourning performances and exhumation ceremonies in Inner Mani (region of Laconia) and continuing with the historical, cross-cultural, sensory exchange as the ethnographic dynamics of the excavation process in the region of Messinia. The third part of the presentation focuses on how the concepts of material culture, the senses and memory as established by the discussed approach were translated into public knowledge, that is applied to create a public participatory event for a devastating earthquake that destroyed the city of Kalamata ten years after the event (something that involved also the excavation and exhibition of objects of memory of and by the citizens).