Decay
1st Edition
Published on 23. August 2021
189 pages
978-1-4780-2203-9 (ISBN)
Description
In thirteen sharp essays, the contributors to Decay attend to the processes and experiences of symbolic and material forms of decay in a variety of sociopolitical contexts across the globe.
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Person
Ghassan Hage is Professor of Anthropology and Social Theory at the University of Melbourne and author of The Diasporic Condition: Ethnographic Explorations of the Lebanese in the World, Is Racism an Environmental Threat?, and other books.
Content
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: States of Decay / Ghassan Hage 1
1. Forever "Falling Apart": Semiotics and Rhetorics of Decay / Violeta Schubert 17
2. Trash and Treasure: Pathologies of Permanence on the Margins of Our Plastic Age / Debra McDougall 28
3. Infrastructure as Decay and the Decay of Infrastructure / Akhil Gupta 37
4. The Waterfall at the End of the World: Earthquakes, Entropy, and Explanation / Monica Minnegal, Michael Main, and Peter D. Dwyer 47
5. "Vile Corpse": Urban Decay as Human Beauty and Social Pollution / Michael Herzfeld 58
6. Decay or Fresh Contact? The Morality of Mixture after War's End / Bart Klem 73
7. Seeds of Decay / Fabio Mattioli 86
8. Discourses of Decay in Settler Colonial Australia / Elise Klein 99
9. Decay as Decline in Social Viability among Ex-Militiamen in Lebanon / Ghassan Hage 110
10. Relational Decay: White Helpers in Australia's Indigenous Communities / Cameo Dalley 128
11. Decay, Rot, Mold, and Resistance in the US Prison System / Tamara Kohn 140
References 153
Contributors 171
Index 175
Introduction: States of Decay / Ghassan Hage 1
1. Forever "Falling Apart": Semiotics and Rhetorics of Decay / Violeta Schubert 17
2. Trash and Treasure: Pathologies of Permanence on the Margins of Our Plastic Age / Debra McDougall 28
3. Infrastructure as Decay and the Decay of Infrastructure / Akhil Gupta 37
4. The Waterfall at the End of the World: Earthquakes, Entropy, and Explanation / Monica Minnegal, Michael Main, and Peter D. Dwyer 47
5. "Vile Corpse": Urban Decay as Human Beauty and Social Pollution / Michael Herzfeld 58
6. Decay or Fresh Contact? The Morality of Mixture after War's End / Bart Klem 73
7. Seeds of Decay / Fabio Mattioli 86
8. Discourses of Decay in Settler Colonial Australia / Elise Klein 99
9. Decay as Decline in Social Viability among Ex-Militiamen in Lebanon / Ghassan Hage 110
10. Relational Decay: White Helpers in Australia's Indigenous Communities / Cameo Dalley 128
11. Decay, Rot, Mold, and Resistance in the US Prison System / Tamara Kohn 140
References 153
Contributors 171
Index 175
