Looters or Heroes? Production of Illegality and Memories of Looting in Mali.

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Authors
Panella, C.
Discipline
Sociology
Subject
Culture & Society
Audience
Scientific
Date
2014Publisher
Springer Verlag
Metadata
Show full item recordDescription
My paper proposes an ethnographical perspective of the clandestine trade in antiquities in Mali by showing on one side the social organization (techniques, hierarchies, trade chains) of farmers-diggers; on the other side, by analyzing the rhetorics of illegality driven by officially-mandated cultural heritage policies. In particular the paper stresses the function of visuality in the construction of 'illegal' subjects and iconographies of plunder circulated through national and international press. It shows that such an iconic power of images does befog self-representations of farmers-diggers (risk, courage, loneliness) which constitute the ethical cosmos of digging activities. In such a perspective, the debate over the looting of archaeological objects has become a reiterative product of national rhetorics of legality and illegality opposed to narratives of self-representations of marginality and heroization produced by illegal actors.
Citation
Panella, C. (2014). Looters or Heroes? Production of Illegality and Memories of Looting in Mali.. , European Journal of Criminal Policy and Research, Vol. Trafficking Cultural Objects, Springer Verlag, ISSN: 0928-1371 (online); 1572-9869 (print), DOI: 10.1007/s10610-014-9251-9.Identifiers
issn: 0928-1371 (online); 1572-9869 (print)
Type
Article
Peer-Review
Yes
Language
eng