Making material memories: Kinmen’s bridging objects and fractured places between China and Taiwan

Zhang, J.J.; Crang, M.

doi:10.1177/1474474015591488

Making material memories: Kinmen’s bridging objects and fractured places between China and Taiwan

Zhang, J.J.; Crang, M.

Authors

J.J. Zhang

Professor Michael Crang m.a.crang@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

The post-war material culture of Kinmen, a former military outpost in Taiwan, reveals a biography moving from conflict to hope for rapprochement, from matériel to militaria to souvenir. By experimenting with the concept of sensuous materialism, this paper looks at touristic things from and of the battlefield past and explores how, through their materialities, things interact with people’s senses and shape their understandings of cross-strait relations. Far from being inert, these things are full of life and energy in their ability to animate the object-human relationship. Social memories are enacted through specific material affordances with the senses. Those memories are sensuous, emotional and affective as well as political and historic. Examining the making, staging and consumption of touristic things and how their commemorative materialities interact with and shape people’s consciousness of past histories, present happenings and future dreams helps us gain a more nuanced understanding of the China-Taiwan rapprochement process.

Citation

Zhang, J., & Crang, M. (2016). Making material memories: Kinmen’s bridging objects and fractured places between China and Taiwan. cultural geographies, 23(3), 421-439. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474015591488

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	May 4, 2015
Online Publication Date	Jun 24, 2015
Publication Date	Jul 24, 2016
Deposit Date	May 11, 2015
Publicly Available Date	May 21, 2015
Journal	Cultural Geographies
Print ISSN	1474-4740
Electronic ISSN	1477-0881
Publisher	SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	23
Issue	3
Pages	421-439
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474015591488
Keywords	Sensuous materialism, Rapprochement tourism, Matériel culture, Social memory, Affective communication, Taiwan, China.

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Copyright Statement
Zhang, J.J. and Crang, M. (2016) 'Making material memories : Kinmen’s bridging objects and fractured places between China and Taiwan.', Cultural geographies., 23 (3). pp. 421-439. Copyright © The Author(s) 2015. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications.