Archaeology and Anthropology of Death by Elisabetta M C B Dall'Ò
Generare tra la vita e la morte. Aborto e morte perinatale in una prospettiva multidisciplinare, 2020
AIMS Geosciences, 2019
This research puts forward what has been achieved about the findings of a research I am currently... more This research puts forward what has been achieved about the findings of a research I am currently conducting in the Aosta Valley, a francophone region in the North Western Alps of Italy, regarding the relation which links history, risk, disasters, environment and human vulnerability. The focus of this work, based on place-names, is to prove how social vulnerability is rooted into the landscapes, in its history, and in its memory-scapes. It is common knowledge that the act of naming places is in fact a way to control and infuse space, with particular belief-systems and values. As Nash and Robinson argued, the specific context of place-naming came to be considered as an "essential human undertaking" to signify cultural or social meaning in the experienced world, and toponyms came to be understood as matrices of language and the various cultural elements, including landscape, which compose a society's way of life. Toponyms potentially are able to "transform the sheerly physical and geographical into something historically and socially experienced", as Tilley states. Place-names are also depositories of the knowledge that ancestors had given to such places. For this reason, the information embedded in place-names can be used to implement the scientific understanding of such "natural phenomena". Some ancient toponyms in the Valley of Aosta maintain a significance related to "natural hazards", or to potential disasters. These ancient local toponyms used to connect people to the land, keeping relationships with ecology, geology, fauna, flora and material culture. Nowadays this connection has mainly been lost: people are still rebuilding and re-inhabiting the same "risk places", avoiding history. To historicize vulnerability signifies to renegotiate the collective memory and the socio-spatial identities, by allowing the dialogue between past and future. 494 AIMS Geosciences Volume 5, Issue 3, 493-508.
Forthcoming in V. Nizzo (ed.), Archaeology and Anthropology of Death, Rome 2016
Until the end of 18th century, in some of the Western Alps areas, during the catholic official nu... more Until the end of 18th century, in some of the Western Alps areas, during the catholic official nuptial rites, in some case only, a further step took place just at the end of the ceremony in order to legitimize and consecrate the new couple. The ritual consisted of a special and rare celebration: the bride and the bridegroom went with the priest to visit the tombs of their reciprocal families.There the priest was charged to chant the “Libera”, the ancient prayer for the dead. By this celebration the young married, before entering into the community of the living as a couple, - and I would dare to say, before entering into their reciprocal genealogy as “future ancestors”- they had to obtain the consent of their ancestors.
Call for papers by Elisabetta M C B Dall'Ò
Call-for-papers del panel n. 14 dell'VIII Convegno Nazionale SIAA (Società Italiana di Antropolog... more Call-for-papers del panel n. 14 dell'VIII Convegno Nazionale SIAA (Società Italiana di Antropologia Applicata), Parma, 3-6 dicembre 2020, sul tema generale "Fare (in) tempo. Cosa dicono gli antropologi sulle società dell’incertezza".
It has come out a call-for-book-chapters of the series "Geographies of the Anthropocene" (publish... more It has come out a call-for-book-chapters of the series "Geographies of the Anthropocene" (published by Il Sileno), entitled "Disasters in popular orality", edited by Domenica Borriello, Elisabetta Dall'O' and by myself. The volume will be multilingual (English, Italian, French) and to participate you can send your proposal until July 15, 2018 (abstract maximum 500 words) to the following e-mail address: [email protected]
This call intends to collect contributions that, by investigating popular and oral literature, focus on narratives related to risk and disasters (“natural”, “technological”, “health”, “ecological”…), as described in the social imaginary, from the most remote eras to the most stringent current affairs. The book will be a precious element for a comprehensive reconstruction of cultural resources that in Italy and Europe (or elsewhere, depending on the contributions) have allowed to face and manage material and spiritual concerns and problems arising from disasters.
Books by Elisabetta M C B Dall'Ò
Closed. Il mondo degli umani si è ferato, 2020
L’incompletezza costitutiva e intrinseca che caratterizza la conoscenza, anche quella scientifica... more L’incompletezza costitutiva e intrinseca che caratterizza la conoscenza, anche quella scientifica, ha contribuito a scardinare il mito dell’oggettività, e ha messo in evidenza l’impossibilità di raggiungere la certezza del pericolo o della sicurezza, si tratti di un impianto nucleare, di un virus, di un processo produttivo, o di un evento naturale estremo. Lo stiamo vedendo in filigrana nei dibattiti di questi ultimi mesi: tutto ciò che ruota attorno al Covid-19, dalla sua genesi alla sua trasmissione, dalle cure ai coefficienti di contagio, fino ai discorsi esperti e ai dispositivi di protezione, sembra relegare le nostre conoscenze a un limbo di incertezze da cui valutare rischi e scenari futuri risulta impresa per cui non siamo attrezzati. http://www.castelvecchieditore.com/prodotto/closed/
Disastri e comunità alpine. Storia e antropologia della catastrofe, 2019
Esiste un «linguaggio dei luoghi», un «linguaggio locale» che definisca lo specifico ambito legat... more Esiste un «linguaggio dei luoghi», un «linguaggio locale» che definisca lo specifico ambito legato al rischio ambientale, alla catastrofe, al pericolo, al disastro? Esistono dei termini «locali», inscritti nel territorio, nella memoria (e nella cultura locale), per definire quei «disastri» e quelle catastrofi di cui si ha memoria locale specifica, legata cioè ai luoghi in cui si sono verificati? E ancora, esistono -e la toponomastica ce lo insegna- delle relazioni tra luoghi ed eventi disastrosi basate sulla «memoria» dei luoghi fisici?
Disasters in Popular Cultures, 2019
Disasters in Popular Cultures, 2019
The varied, multifaceted and endless popular literary heritage, written and oral, is the means by... more The varied, multifaceted and endless popular literary heritage, written and oral, is the means by which the word stages human desires and passions (Valière, 2006). Nevertheless, Italo Calvino says, fairy tales and legends are all «true», because «they are, taken together, in their ever-repeating and ever-changing casuistry of human events, an explanation of life, born in ancient times and kept in the slow ruminate of the peasant consciences up to us; they are the catalogue of the destinies that can be given to a man and a woman» (Calvino, 1956: 11) [...].
Disasters on Popular Cultures, 2019
In such a historical dramatic period for the future of our planet and their inhabitants, the Alp... more In such a historical dramatic period for the future of our planet and their inhabitants, the Alpine region stands at the heart of climate and environmental debate, providing new outlooks about research and unedited inputs for the “humanities”. The Alpine space constitutes a point of convergence within the sacred, the eighteenth-century science, the popular orality, the christian hagiography, the classical mythology, the traditional knowledge and the memory; and it marks a symbolic universe and a preferential observation point from which to look at the contemporary world, and our relationship with “nature”.
The present contribution aims to presenting, through the fil rouge of the Alps, which have to be considered historical and cultural places built within space and time, the imaginaries linked to their symbolic and physical presence, the questions and the answers attempts that inhabitants and explorers of these places have formulated on the intention of giving “sense to the world" seizing its changes.
Among the many legends about popular orality — and not just — which punctuate the Alpine imaginaries, the most widespread one is provided by the presence of some threatening mythological characters which possess a “very sharp ability to see”, forked tongues enabling them to freeze the green alpine pastures: those are dragoons, fantastic beasts, related to water elements, even in their solid form, to “evil”, to “demons”, and they sometimes become a very personification of glaciers, symbols of unpredictability and threat of “climate changes”.
Until the end of eighteen century, a period which coincides, according to some scholars, with the Anthropocene advent, little or nothing was known about glaciers, monstrous ice seas, sliding snakes rolling down to the valley, and whose tongues warmed their way among the canyons. For a long time threatening and massive glaciers remained a mystery.
Definitely the mountaineers feared them, they were scared about their progressive sloping forward, which could “to devour” pastures and fertile lands, just like it happened in the past ages, and the world “curse” was given to them.
In this moment, due to climate changes, and high speed melting of glacial fronts, we are witnessing to the glacier disappearance and its irreversible decline. No more glaciers, no more dragoons, this is the future we are expecting, this is the “curse” of our times.
Papers by Elisabetta M C B Dall'Ò
Journal des anthropologues
Anthropocene and future food: a look at insects in history, imaginative work, legislation, and su... more Anthropocene and future food: a look at insects in history, imaginative work, legislation, and sustainability Abstract Since 2003, FAO has been working on topics concerning insects for food and animal feed as alternative protein sources to satisfy the global growing demand for meat, and to preserve the environment. From the perspective of the Anthropocene, the new geo-cultural epoch in which we live, defined by our own massive impact on the planet, this paper aims to propose a multidisciplinary reflection about the role of edible insects as "future foods" in Western culture. Covering a range of disciplines among human sciences, anthropology, sociology, history and law, our contribution offers a brief review on entomophagy and on some cultural and social issues that insects raise in the scientific debate.
The book includes twelve contributions (three in French, four in English, five in Italian) coveri... more The book includes twelve contributions (three in French, four in English, five in Italian) covering a wide spectrum of locations around the world: from Hawaii to Italy (Sicily, the Alps, the Neapolitan area: the Phlegraean Fields, Ischia island and mount Vesuvius), from the Democratic Republic of Congo to India, from Papua New Guinea to Latin America. It proceeds from different interpretative perspectives, so as to overcome the disciplinary boundaries and to encourage readings that can be integrated with each other. The same variety is present both in the field of disasters and in popular/oral literature. In the first case, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, droughts, landslides and mudflows, glaciers and global warming are evoked. In the second, popular legends, proverbs, fairy tales, myths, collective memory, plausible tales, conspiracy theories and urban legends. BOOK INDEX: Preface - Joel Candau Introduction - Giovanni Gugg, Elisabetta Dall'O', Domenica Borriello Section I...
AIMS Geosciences, 2019
This research puts forward what has been achieved about the findings of a research I am currently... more This research puts forward what has been achieved about the findings of a research I am currently conducting in the Aosta Valley, a francophone region in the North Western Alps of Italy, regarding the relation which links history, risk, disasters, environment and human vulnerability. The focus of this work, based on place-names, is to prove how social vulnerability is rooted into the landscapes, in its history, and in its memory-scapes. It is common knowledge that the act of naming places is in fact a way to control and infuse space, with particular belief-systems and values. As Nash and Robinson argued, the specific context of place-naming came to be considered as an “essential human undertaking” to signify cultural or social meaning in the experienced world, and toponyms came to be understood as matrices of language and the various cultural elements, including landscape, which compose a society’s way of life. Toponyms potentially are able to “transform the sheerly physical and geographical into something historically and socially experienced”, as Tilley states. Place-names are also depositories of the knowledge that ancestors had given to such places. For this reason, the information embedded in place-names can be used to implement the scientific understanding of such “natural phenomena”. Some ancient toponyms in the Valley of Aosta maintain a significance related to “natural hazards”, or to potential disasters. These ancient local toponyms used to connect people to the land, keeping relationships with ecology, geology, fauna, flora and material culture. Nowadays this connection has mainly been lost: people are still re-building and re-inhabiting the same “risk places”, avoiding history. To historicize vulnerability signifies to renegotiate the collective memory and the socio-spatial identities, by allowing the dialogue between past and future.
Antropocene e cibo del futuro: uno sguardo agli insetti tra storia, immaginari, normative e sostenibilità, 2020
Anthropocene and future food: a look at insects in history, imaginative work, legislation, and su... more Anthropocene and future food: a look at insects in history, imaginative work, legislation, and sustainability Abstract Since 2003, FAO has been working on topics concerning insects for food and animal feed as alternative protein sources to satisfy the global growing demand for meat, and to preserve the environment. From the perspective of the Anthropocene, the new geo-cultural epoch in which we live, defined by our own massive impact on the planet, this paper aims to propose a multidisciplinary reflection about the role of edible insects as "future foods" in Western culture. Covering a range of disciplines among human sciences, anthropology, sociology, history and law, our contribution offers a brief review on entomophagy and on some cultural and social issues that insects raise in the scientific debate.
Culture, Changing Climates, Vol 13, n°2, 2019
This paper describes the preliminary results of anthropological research I’ve been conducting on ... more This paper describes the preliminary results of anthropological research I’ve been conducting on the Mont Blanc area (Western Europe), concerning the impacts of climate change on the mountain environment.
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Archaeology and Anthropology of Death by Elisabetta M C B Dall'Ò
Call for papers by Elisabetta M C B Dall'Ò
This call intends to collect contributions that, by investigating popular and oral literature, focus on narratives related to risk and disasters (“natural”, “technological”, “health”, “ecological”…), as described in the social imaginary, from the most remote eras to the most stringent current affairs. The book will be a precious element for a comprehensive reconstruction of cultural resources that in Italy and Europe (or elsewhere, depending on the contributions) have allowed to face and manage material and spiritual concerns and problems arising from disasters.
Books by Elisabetta M C B Dall'Ò
The present contribution aims to presenting, through the fil rouge of the Alps, which have to be considered historical and cultural places built within space and time, the imaginaries linked to their symbolic and physical presence, the questions and the answers attempts that inhabitants and explorers of these places have formulated on the intention of giving “sense to the world" seizing its changes.
Among the many legends about popular orality — and not just — which punctuate the Alpine imaginaries, the most widespread one is provided by the presence of some threatening mythological characters which possess a “very sharp ability to see”, forked tongues enabling them to freeze the green alpine pastures: those are dragoons, fantastic beasts, related to water elements, even in their solid form, to “evil”, to “demons”, and they sometimes become a very personification of glaciers, symbols of unpredictability and threat of “climate changes”.
Until the end of eighteen century, a period which coincides, according to some scholars, with the Anthropocene advent, little or nothing was known about glaciers, monstrous ice seas, sliding snakes rolling down to the valley, and whose tongues warmed their way among the canyons. For a long time threatening and massive glaciers remained a mystery.
Definitely the mountaineers feared them, they were scared about their progressive sloping forward, which could “to devour” pastures and fertile lands, just like it happened in the past ages, and the world “curse” was given to them.
In this moment, due to climate changes, and high speed melting of glacial fronts, we are witnessing to the glacier disappearance and its irreversible decline. No more glaciers, no more dragoons, this is the future we are expecting, this is the “curse” of our times.
Papers by Elisabetta M C B Dall'Ò
This call intends to collect contributions that, by investigating popular and oral literature, focus on narratives related to risk and disasters (“natural”, “technological”, “health”, “ecological”…), as described in the social imaginary, from the most remote eras to the most stringent current affairs. The book will be a precious element for a comprehensive reconstruction of cultural resources that in Italy and Europe (or elsewhere, depending on the contributions) have allowed to face and manage material and spiritual concerns and problems arising from disasters.
The present contribution aims to presenting, through the fil rouge of the Alps, which have to be considered historical and cultural places built within space and time, the imaginaries linked to their symbolic and physical presence, the questions and the answers attempts that inhabitants and explorers of these places have formulated on the intention of giving “sense to the world" seizing its changes.
Among the many legends about popular orality — and not just — which punctuate the Alpine imaginaries, the most widespread one is provided by the presence of some threatening mythological characters which possess a “very sharp ability to see”, forked tongues enabling them to freeze the green alpine pastures: those are dragoons, fantastic beasts, related to water elements, even in their solid form, to “evil”, to “demons”, and they sometimes become a very personification of glaciers, symbols of unpredictability and threat of “climate changes”.
Until the end of eighteen century, a period which coincides, according to some scholars, with the Anthropocene advent, little or nothing was known about glaciers, monstrous ice seas, sliding snakes rolling down to the valley, and whose tongues warmed their way among the canyons. For a long time threatening and massive glaciers remained a mystery.
Definitely the mountaineers feared them, they were scared about their progressive sloping forward, which could “to devour” pastures and fertile lands, just like it happened in the past ages, and the world “curse” was given to them.
In this moment, due to climate changes, and high speed melting of glacial fronts, we are witnessing to the glacier disappearance and its irreversible decline. No more glaciers, no more dragoons, this is the future we are expecting, this is the “curse” of our times.