Difficult Heritage of the 20th Century from the Perspective of the Biography of Things
Difficult Heritage of the 20th Century from the Perspective of the Biography of Things

Summary/Abstract: This paper discusses the concept of difficult/dark heritage from a theoretical perspective known as the biography of things. First, I analyse Polish archaeological research on difficult/ dark heritage. Second, I describe in greater detail the biography of things as a tool for studying relationships between people, things and places. The last part of the paper is a case study presenting the biographies of three objects found in the grounds of a prisoner-of-war camp in Czersk. I aim to prove the following theses: 1) archaeologies of the recent past cannot be understood simply as the archaeology of martyrdom; 2) material culture from the recent past allows us to create different kinds of narratives connected with dark heritage.

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