Pictures From a Too Recent Past: An Archaeography of Destroyed Family Homes Between Memory and Politics – Some Reflections on the Lebanese and the Kurdish Cases

The term of “archaeography” characterizes here a specific intersection between archaeology and photography, where the latter is a documental instrument for the former. Although rarely associated with recent past, archaeology can investigate the ruins of contemporary societies and their traumatic events through its peculiar means. In this sense, archaeography is not simply about picturing ruins, but above all about a forensic attitude towards places and events, documented though their material culture. This paper examines some family houses destroyed during the Lebanese Civil War and al-Anfal Campaign in Iraqi Kurdistan as case-studies of an archaeological-visual mode of engagement with a violent and persistent past. Even if scientific, such an approach is inevitably politically controversial, as it deals with nationalisms, sectarianism and ideological versions of the remembered past, as well as with fresh scars in the memory of individuals. But, sometimes, a “material cultural” memory can also offer a chance for resilience.