Maura Finkelstein, The Archive of Loss: Lively Ruination in Mill Land Mumbai
Durham: Duke University Press, 2019, pp 264.
Keywords:
Ruination, Mumbai, Affective archive, Anthropological methodologyAbstract
The review discusses Maura Finkelstein’s ethnography titled ‘The Archive of Loss: Lively Ruination in Mill Land Mumbai.’ In the ethnography, Finkelstein examines the abandoned site of the Dhanraj Textile Mill, situated at the centre of Mumbai. This review highlights two key points from Finkelstein’s ethnography. First, her concept of ‘living ruination,’ where she considers the material debris, bodily memories of the workers, and the affective atmosphere around the mill as “living,” capable of telling an alternate story. Second, her call for an interdisciplinary and anthropologically grounded approach to archival practice, which can potentially reveal alternative histories in post-industrial Indian cityscapes.
References
Gordillo, Gastón. Rubble: The Afterlife of Destruction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014.
Haraway, Donna J. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” In Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, 149–81. New York: Routledge, 1991.
Stoler, Ann Laura. Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009.
Stoler, Ann Laura. Imperial Debris: Reflections on Ruins and Ruination. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013.
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