Meanings and Materialities
Meanings and Materialities
Exhibition 6–15 June
Open every day 12:00-18:00Virpi Timonen, Eunsil Shin, Malin Bäckman, Federica Previtali & Friedemann Neumann
The question of what do we leave behind? is key for understanding the global challenges of inequality and environmental degradation. The concept of legacy—traditionally used synonymously with inheritance—has been construed in static and material terms, as money or property given to someone posthumously. Along with material legacies - inheritance and bequests - we leave younger and future generations various socioenvironmental legacies arising from decisions and choices over time: the epitome of these ‘spoiled’ legacies being the climate crisis. The Legacies project proposes a novel approach where material and socioenvironmental legacies entail co-existing generations transmitting and being left with situations, objects, or resources, with or without explicit intent. In this paper, we will examine the utility, adaptability and limits of the idea of the gift to this endeavour. To what extent can we conceive of material legacies (inheritance and bequests, both posthumous and inter vivos) as gifts? Can taxes on inheritance and bequests be seen as a type of gift (to society)? Does it make sense to think of our socioenvironmental legacies as either ‘spoiled gifts’ or as attempts to remedy the ‘spoiled gift’? To the extent that legacies can be thought of as gifts, what kinds of power or even agency might they have? In analysing both the uses and limits of the gift concept in illuminating legacies, we will also discuss how context matters in the form of legislation and policies governing inheritance and environmental policies, generational relationships, and welfare state structures.
I completed my doctorate at the University of Oxford in 2001. My research has focused on social policies in ageing societies and sociology of intergenerational relationships, providing new insights into how older adults contribute to the maintenance of family solidarity but also make choices that break with established roles. I have theorised how successful and active ageing are socially constructed through policymaking and my Model Ageing Theory critiques the paradigms that dominate policy making for older adults. In the realm of methods, my work has made Grounded Theory more accessible to a wide range of researchers across substantive fields.
I did an MSc and PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in eastern Japan, I explored people’s efforts to rebuild a sense of everyday life in the ruins of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. My research revolves around a shared sense of crisis that emerged in East Asia in the context of Cold War tensions, nuclear matters, toxicity, and issues surrounding environmental inheritance. Alongside this research, I have also translated into Korean two books by anthropologist Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity: A particular history of the senses (2019) and Walter Benjamin’s Grave (2024).
In the Legacies project I am researching environmental and material legacies in Göteborg, Sweden. Before joining the Legacies project, I did my doctoral studies in Environmental Communication at the Department Urban and Rural Development at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). My thesis focused on what comes to count as sustainable in a new and developing urban district called Rosendal, located in Uppsala. I approached the district as a sociomaterial assemblage and explored meanings of sustainability. I have previously worked at the Sustainable Places Research Institute at Cardiff University, and I have a Master’s degree in Creative Sustainability from Aalto University.
I received an M.A. in Organisational Psychology from the University of Milano-Bicocca and a PhD in Social Psychology from Tampere University. I am interested in the ageing of our societies and how it is addressed in policy and everyday life. My previous research focused on ageism in organisations and digitalisation from a discursive perspective. My doctoral thesis analysed how age and ageist stereotypes are used and challenged in authentic organisational encounters. In the Legacies project, I conduct fieldwork in Italy (Turin) and widen my perspective on environmental issues and material practices in intergenerational relations.
I am an anthropologist who researches legacies in the US (California). I use ethnographic and material culture approaches with a focus on diversity, social inequality and environmental degradation. Previously, I was a research associate and scientific coordinator at the University of Göttingen and worked at Goethe University Frankfurt. In my doctoral thesis, I addressed the challenges of homemaking in asylum reception in Germany. I have taught at the University of Heidelberg, the University of Mainz, and the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences. I am also interested in urban diversities, social reproduction, dispossessions, forced and postmigration, urban and material methods, and curatorial projects.