ASA 2025 Anthropology on the Move | conference
The Problem of the Ordinary: Toward an Anthropology of Decline Convenors: Henrike Donner (Goldsmiths) Pauline von Hellermann (Sussex) Chair: Deborah James (LSE) Collapsing Stones: Living with Decay A stone wall on a mountainside collapses. Decay suspended. What does it mean to seek its repair? Paper Abstract: The following paper is based on fieldwork in 2021 in a mountainous area of southern Spain, the Alpujarras, largely abandoned during a rural exodus expedited by the construction of industrial greenhouses on the coast. The collapse of once cultivated terraces is not only caused by leaving them in a state of disrepair, but by changes in the flow of water which exert effects along its entire trajectory. Water which once flowed in a system of fertile acequías (water channels) meandering across the mountain, having now been largely redirected to new sites of value on the coast, traces the region’s decline. Decay is not singular. But by pronou...
