Nostalgia as discrete points

The four readings provide a diverse set of perspectives on this week’s theme of objects and nostalgic practice. Out of this collection I particularly enjoyed the pieces by Hirsch and Spitzer, and Berdahl, although this enjoyment was due more to the subject matter than the methodological rigour of the articles as such. That being said, both were able to provide evidence and supporting reasons for the claims made compared to the pieces by Parkin and Rains, which I felt were lacking in this department. Parkin’s article was very interesting to read however - it is the first piece were the connection between this class and my other studies in conflict have really coalesced, in a clear and direct manner.

I’ve chosen to focus this reflection on Spitzer and Hirsch, and Berdahl however, as I find these two articles lend themselves for comparison most suitably. A commonalty shared by these two is the centrality of a specific historical setting in which the objects came into being, and a completely different setting in which they are being re-examined, without much involvement or engagement with the objects in the time between.

In Berdahl’s piece, the role of East German everyday material commodities (a conscious word choice) in defining East German identity prior to reunification, and as a means of identity (re)construction following this within the context of hegemonic West German influence on the united nation-state (again, consciously chosen). Berdahl’s aims were to draw a distinction between ‘mere’ nostalgia, and what she terms “socially sanctioned commemorative practices,” as well as illustrate the role of active participation in Ostalgie through the consumption of specific commodities as a means of challenging the domination of West German. This latter point is, in my view, the most interesting, and Berdahl’s conclusion of the dualistic nature of this opposition to hegemonic impositions of culture, values and identity as being both challenging and reaffirming the status quo is a subtle yet intriguing point.

The article by Hirsch and Spitzer is similar in the historical ‘discrete points’ here the engagement with objects takes place. Berdahl’s article centers on the role of commodities as constituting socialist identity during the division of the country, followed by the re-appearance of these commodities in years following reunification and the disillusion this has brought. I.e., the fall of the wall and reunification ‘breaks’ the time-spectrum within which these particular commodities are engaged with by people, and which also clearly divides the symbolic meaning of these. The book of recipes and Dr. Kessler’s books similarly involve this temporal ‘break’ (and here, also spatially): The point at which these objects were made (in concentration camps during WWII), and the point at which they were discovered and retrieved (in the post-war period).

These two pieces are valuable for illustrating the connection of objects to re-discovering the past: The concentration camp objects provide a way to examine gender through a ‘return’ to that specific place and time, without the inference as such of time (ignoring here the role of observation and subjectivity). The examination of everyday commodities and activities (e.g. discos) enables a look at how the interaction of these has changed, as well as the symbolic meaning attributed to them (i.e. both as a means of returning to the good old days, and as reconstituting identity). In Hirsch and Spitzer, the objects must speak for themselves; in Berdahl, the objects are part of a continued conversation.

As for my personal memento, I have chosen a few small pieces of jewelry which were my maternal grandmothers. I think that what is interesting about these is not so much what the objects mean per se, but what they fail to encompass. My grandmother was a Scottish war bride, marrying a (Canadian-?)Irish WWII soldier. They settled in Ontario, had some children. My mother traveled somewhat over country when she was young, settling in Nova Scotia, met my father, had children. My father is British, yet spent a portion of his childhood in Trinidad, spent many years of education in the States before coming to Canada. My family has spent the past 15 years living abroad however, with somewhat regular visits to the UK, but only one visit to Canada while I was growing up, resulting (among other things) in a lack of Canadian self-identification for me and my sister. As such, the pieces of jewelry signify to me not so much my heritage from this side of my family, but more the fluidity and transnationality of heritage, the malleability of this, and the way heritage can be constructed by oneself.