The ‘Casser Maison’ Ritual

Journal of Material Culture - Tập 6 Số 2 - Trang 213-235 - 2001
Jean‐Sébastien Marcoux1
1Department of Anthropology, University College London

Tóm tắt

This paper addresses the relationship between mobility, ageing and death in an urban housing market from a material culture perspective. It examines a divestment ritual performed by elderly people in Montreal (Canada) on the occasion of a move from a home on their own to a care environment. This move which is often a move into a smaller place and a smaller set of things is also accompanied by the compulsion for the people to divest themselves of some of their belongings, a process that is called ‘ casser maison’, literally ‘breaking the house’. This ethnographic paper reveals that ‘ casser maison’ is not only a matter of getting separated from some, if not most, of one’s possessions, however. It is also a matter of placing those possessions among the kin or other potential recipients. In this respect, ‘ casser maison’ pertains to a ritualized form of construction of the self through the emptying of the place. It proceeds from the wish to ancestralize oneself; the capacity to place one’s possessions is taken to guarantee the survival of the subject and of his or her memory. As such, this paper demonstrates that, through the use of personal belongings, the divestment of the self becomes a form of investment.

Từ khóa


Tài liệu tham khảo

Allen, I., 1992, Elderly People: Choice Participation and Satisfaction

Arnould, E., The Seventh Interdisciplinary Conference on Research in Consumption: Consumption Ritual

10.4000/terrain.3055

10.1017/CBO9780511607646

CMHC - Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (1997) Le marché des résidences pour personnes âgées de la Région de Montréal. Centre d’analyse de marché, Région du Québec.

CMHC - Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (1998) Étude de marché des résidences pour personnes âgées. Région métropolitaine de Montréal. Centre d’analyse de marché, Région du Québec.

Carisse, C. (1970) ‘La liberté testamentaire et la famille’, in J. Boucher and A. Morel (eds) Livre du centenaire du code civil: le droit dans la vie familiale. vol. 1, pp. 109-15. Montréal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal.

Chevalier, S. (1993) ‘Nous, on n’a rien de spécial.’, in M. Segalen and B. LeWita (eds) Chez-soi. Objets et décors: des créations familiales? pp. 85-101. Paris: Éditions Autrement.

Chevalier, S. (1994) ‘Au-delà d’une apparente banalité et d’un standard: des décors domestiques particuliers’, Archives suisses des traditions populaires 90(2): 165-85.

Chevalier, S. (1995) ‘Itinéraires mobiliers ouvriers’, in N. Gérôme (dir) Archives sensibles. Images et objets du monde industriel ouvrier. Cachan: Les Éditions de l’École Normale Supérieure de Cachan.

Chevalier, S. (1996) ‘Transmettre son mobilier?’, Ethnologie française XXVI(1): 115-28.

Chevalier, S. (1998) ‘Destins de cadeaux’, Ethnologie française, XXVII(4): 506-14.

10.1177/073346489601500304

10.1017/CBO9781139167611

Déchaux, J.H. (1996) ‘Les services dans la parenté: fonctions, régulations, effets’, in J.C. Kaufmann (dir) Faire ou faire-faire? Familles et services, pp. 39-54. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.

Dubellay, J. (1558) Les regrets et autres oeuvres poétiques.

Dumont, L., 1980, Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and its Implications

Finch, J., 1989, Family Obligations and Social Change

10.1177/0038038594028002004

Finch, J., 1996, Wills, Inheritance, and Families, 10.1093/oso/9780198258346.001.0001

10.1016/S1053-5357(98)80007-3

Godbout, J.T. and Charbonneau, J. with the collaboration of Lemieux, V. (1996) La circulation du don dans la parenté. Une roue qui tourne. Montréal: Institut national de recherche scientifique en urbanisation.

Goffman, E., 1961, Asylums

Goody, J., 1962, Death, Property and the Ancestors

Gotman, A. (1988) Hériter. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Government of Quebec (1999) Les successions. Ministère de la Justice, Direction des communications.

Hertz, R., 1960, Death and the Right Hand, 29

Hockey, J. L., 1990, Experiences of Death: An Anthropological Account

10.1525/ae.1997.24.4.910

10.1017/CBO9780511819582.004

10.1027/0227-5910.18.2.86

10.1525/ae.1988.15.4.02a00020

10.2307/2802863

La Presse (4 March 1998) ‘Qui héritera de vos biens?’. Special edition. Vos finances personnelles, no. 10, La planification successorale.

Latour, B. (1994) Nous n’avons jamais été modernes. Essai d’anthropologie symétrique. Paris: Armillard.

LeWita, B. (1988) Ni vue, ni connue. Étude ethnographique de la bourgeoisie. Paris: Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.

Martel, J. (1979) ‘La transmission des biens en Nouvelle-France’, Revue d’ethnologie du Québec 10: 73-82.

Mauss, M. (1923-24) ‘Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés archaïques’, L’Année sociologique 2(1): 145-284.

McCracken, G., 1988, Culture and Consumption

Macfarlane, A., 1978, The Origins of English Individualism

10.1086/208566

Miller, D., 1994, Modernity, an Ethnographic Approach

10.1177/026327697014004003

Moore, S.F., 1977, Secular Rituals

Munn, N., 1970, Australian Aboriginal Anthropology: Modern Studies in the Social Anthropology of the Australian Aborigines, 141

10.1177/135918359900400304

Parry, J. P., 1979, Caste and Kinship in Kangara

Postolec, G. (1992) ‘La reproduction sociale à Neuville au XVIIIe siècle: l’apport foncier au mariage’, in R. Bonnain, G. Bouchard and J. Roy (eds) Transmettre, hériter, succéder La reproduction sociale en milieu rural, France-Québec, XVIIIe-XXe siècles. pp. 43-53. Lyon: École des Hautes Études en Sciences sociales, Presses Universitaires de Lyon.

Ringuet (1938) Trente arpents. Montreal: Fides.

10.1080/00438243.1993.9980234

Rowlands, M., Conference on Time Capsules and Futurscapes, National Museum of Ethnology

Rowlands, M., 6th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropology

10.1017/CBO9780511583421

Segalen, M. (1998) Rites et rituels contemporains. Paris: Nathan.

Shakespeare, W., 1606, King Lear

Tan, C.K. (2001) ‘Mediated Devotion: Tradition and Christianity among Paiwan of Taiwan’. Doctoral thesis, London: University of London.

10.3928/0098-9134-19900701-06

Tobin, S. S., 1976, Last Home for the Aged

Turner, V. W., 1969, The Ritual Process. Structure and Antistructure

Van Gennep, A. (1909) Les rites de passage. Paris: Émile Nourry.

Vereecken, J.L.T.M. (1964) ‘Sur quelques cas de dépression du déménagement’, Encéphale 53(5): 614-26.

Weatherill, L., 1988, Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in Britain, 1660-1760

10.1525/california/9780520076037.001.0001

Zola, E. (1887) La terre. Reprinted in 1980. Paris: Gallimard.

Zoltvany, Y.F. (1971) ‘Esquisse de la coutume de Paris’, Revue d’Histoire d’Amérique Française 25(3): 365-84.

Thông tin
Thông tin xuất bản

Journal of Material Culture

Tập 6 Số 2

213-235

Thông tin tác giả