This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Add to My Marked Citations Google Scholar Articles by DeSoucey, M. Articles by Fine, G. A. Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Memory and Sacrifice: An Embodied Theory of Martyrdom

Northwestern University, m-desoucey{at}northwestern.edu

Jo-Ellen Pozner

University of California, Berkeley, pozner{at}haas.berkeley.edu

Corey Fields

Northwestern University, c-fields2{at}northwestern.edu

Kerry Dobransky

Northwestern University, k-dobransky{at}northwestern.edu

Gary Alan Fine

Northwestern University, g-fine{at}northwestern.edu

We use a reputational approach to create a theory of martyrdom that synthesizes scholarship on the body politic, cultural symbols, and collective memory. The making of a martyr, a contested social process, depends on both the resources of the martyr's supporters and the cultural context into which the martyr's image is introduced. Our approach is well suited to analyzing how martyrs are used `on the ground' and given cultural and material utility. We highlight the attention paid to the conception and reception of the martyr's corporeal body, in particular, as a source of identity and meaning, giving emotional weight to social ideas about death and sacrifice. Control over martyrs' bodies derives from the cultural and political intricacies of reputational entrepreneurship, thus employing the body as a medium of culture. To examine this concept of embodied martyrdom, we examine the cases of Joan of Arc, John Brown, and Che Guevara.

Key Words: collective memory • cultural objects • martyrdom • reputational entrepreneurship • sociology of the body

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?