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The Ghosts of Urban Stone

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Abstract

In this final and concluding chapter, I investigate the explanatory limitations of the theories I have used in chapters throughout this book by exploring the enigmatic, mysterious, ineffable myriad qualities of stone that produce incomprehensible relics and haunting traces of former lives across the city, for stone’s durabilities means that lithic forms endure longer than many other urban materialities. In supplementing the nine vignettes that are included in the book, extracts that did not fit into the themes of my chapters, in this chapter I tell diverse stories about the peculiar absences, residues, traces and juxtapositions that litter urban space as part of its multi-temporal materiality. I explore how stone haunts Melbourne in many ways: though ancient geological origins, Aboriginal traces, outmoded memorials, phantom networks, discarded fashions, worked surfaces, lithic things that return and objects that seem out of place. Encounters with such eerie, weird, inexplicable stony things seem to thwart understanding but they stimulate the telling of speculative narratives.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Place Management, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

    Tim Edensor

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  1. Tim Edensor
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Correspondence to Tim Edensor .

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Edensor, T. (2020). The Ghosts of Urban Stone. In: Stone. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4650-1_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4650-1_8

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-4649-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-4650-1

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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