OBJECTS AND NOSTALGIA – SOUVENIRS, MEMENTOS, HEIRLOOMS

This week’s readings concerned objects and nostalgic practices. The two articles I discuss in this commentary are Berdahl’s piece on East Germany and Rains work on Irish material culture.

The Berdahl article centered on East German objects and the multiple meanings they took on (to Ossis and Wessis alike) after the fall of the Berlin Wall and socialism. After the reunification of East and West Germany, Berdahl explores how East German objects have taken on large nostalgic significance for Ossis, so too as the experience of their GDR everyday life has been “museumified”. Berdahl’s primary claim here is that “Ostalgie” (a term she invents to mean nostalgia for the East) products and practices both contest and affirm the new German order brought about by reunification. Berdahl discusses the importance of production to Ossis during the GDR and the subsequent collapse of such production after reunification to give readers a sense of context and the importance people of the East placed on products (objects). She then gets in to a discussion of the politics of value – Eastern things are less valued than Western German objects after 1989 – followed by an analysis of the significance East German objects have to those of the former East and their struggle to keep Eastern things on the shelves and in their minds. Here is where Berdahl makes her main claim about nostalgia – the nostalgia East Germans have of their things and former way of life.

I thought Berdahl’s narrative strategy in using a specific case study to illuminate her points and theories was incredibly helpful and benefited her article significantly. Unlike some of the other readings we’ve looked at this semester, her ideas and theories about the significance of objects and their changing meanings were more easily understood here (to me, at least) because she had a concrete case study to back up her claims and arguments.

However, there is one main conflict I had with this article and the overall “feeling” of the piece. Even though Berdahl briefly addressed this issue on pg. 202, I had the sense throughout the reading that it, in a way, really discredited the reunification of Germany and the rights Germans, especially German youth, fought for. No doubt, I do agree with her main claim that for people of East Germany, objects take on significant amounts of nostalgia. What I have trouble with, is the way she framed this nostalgia. The way Berdahl frames the narratives of the people and their objects – be it games, aprons, beers, whatever—makes it seem like the reunification of Germany was something these people were against and so they clung on to their Eastern objects as a way of showing their support for the East and former GDR times. I can’t help but get the feeling that Berdahl’s narratives, at least in the first half of the article, come across as oppositional and almost bitter toward the events of German reunification.

Question 1: What do you think of the way Berdahl frames nostalgia? Do you think she frames nostalgia as oppositional? Is it even possible to remember things of the past without being oppositional towards the present/ future?

The Rains article considers ways in which Irish material culture is presented to tourists and the ways in which it acts as a memento of their tourist experience. The article also focuses on the relationship between the Irish diaspora and its visits to Ireland – souvenirs and the material culture of tourism as a means of exploring cultural connections between the diaspora and their homeland, Ireland.

There were several points raised in the reading but I generally agreed with and believed Rains main claims. Regarding Irish material culture and tourism (by way of strangers or people of a diaspora), Rains argues that tourist consumption fits the pattern of “transactions of incorporations”. That is to say, that visitors attempt to incorporate themselves into the culture they are visiting by buying and shopping for souvenirs. “Material-culture consumption is a method of allaying feelings of marginalization as it allows a sense of participation in the local culture…” (Rains pp. 56) In the way that this argument lends itself to how material culture (souvenirs) function to BOTH visitors as well as members of a diaspora going back “home”, this claim put forth by Rains is believable and agreeable. It also sheds some valuable insight to understanding why many people who have the opportunity to travel abroad become kind of obsessed with souvenirs and shopping while on their travels.

A moment in the reading that was particularly striking was when Rains discussed the different kinds of material culture that exist across ethnic groups. He argues that certain ethnic groups HAVE TO have to incorporate kitschy objects into souvenirs, national identity, etc. Why? Because illuminating the community’s real stories and struggles would be impossible, nevermind that it wouldn’t sell anything. “Nowhere are the deracinating and alienating effects of capitalism felt more powerfully than in communities whose histories are determined by domination, displacement, immigration…kitsch becomes, in such spheres, the congealed memory of traumas too intimate and too profound to be lived over without stylization and attitude.” (Rains 57)

Question 2: Besides the example of Irish culture and the kitsch material culture this ethnic community makes use of, can we think of other ethnic groups where kitsch “becomes the congealed memory of traumas too profound to be lived over without stylization…”?