Symposium Unpacking the Unruly: Paradoxes of Sacralization/Desacralization

Rite de Passage Symposium Irene Stengs, 29 January 2026

Splendor Amsterdam

On Thursday 29 January, the Meertens Institute is hosting a “rite de passage” symposium in honour of the retirement of Irene Stengs, titled Unpacking the Unruly: Paradoxes of Sacralization/Desacralization. This symposium is intended for scholars interested in the theme of sacralization/desacralization. Please register if you expect to come. Language of the event: English. About the symposiumSacralization and desacralization are inextricably connected essential human practices. Sacralization, setting things apart, has been central to Stengs’ research on ritual and popular culture in Thailand and the Netherlands. Humans are sacralizers, a fact studied in a broad field of scholarship dedicated to religion, heritage, politics, and identity making. Desacralisation, by contrast, has received less scholarly attention. This lack of attention tends to limit our view on the always lurking possibility that the sacrality bestowed on things may come unhinged as well as annihilated, possibly with desastrous consequences? The aim of this symposium is to develop the pair of sacralization and desacralization as a twin concept by thinking through a broad array of practices relating the sacred.How to analytically deepen our understanding of differing or even clashing practices of sacralization? How to grasp the potential excess of sacralization that entails an ever-increasing quantity of sacralized objects and practices of handling them? How do people handle what I called “sacred waste”? How does sacralization end? How does desacralization keep sacrality alive?The twin concept of sacralization/desacralization, in short, immediately invokes a wide variety of pressing questions regarding the circulation, recognition, management, preservation, destruction, oblivion, silencing and profanation of the sacred.This symposium invites ethnographic contributions that take sacralization/desacralization as a prism to unpack the unruly processes that keep societies on their toes. Program09.30 – 10.00 arrival with coffee and tea10.00 – 10.10 welcome by Markus Balkenhol, moderator (Meertens Institute)10.10 – 12.00 session 1Sacralization and desacralization of antifascism in the (post) Yugoslav lands: Understanding the Trajectory Tanja Petrovic (Institute of Culture and Memory Studies, Ljubliana)Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh: Secular sacrality unbound in late socialist Vietnam Tam Ngo (NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam)Queering Betel Nut Chewing: Gender and Sacralized Power in Northeast Thailand Visisya Pinthongvijayakul (Chandrakasem Rajabhat University, Bangkok)“Hope over History”: The Amazing Sacred Afterlives of Robben Island Prison Waste Duane Jethro (Department of African Studies and Linguistics, University of Cape Town) 12.00 – 13.00 lunch 13.00 – 14.50 session 2 Ashes, Human Remains, and Necroeconomy: The Cycle of (De)sacralisation of the South Vietnam War Dead Dat Nguyen (NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam)Tragedy, regulation, and excess at Zé Pelintra’s feet: Conflicting sacralities of Rio de Janeiro’s favorite trickster Martijn Oosterbaan (Department of Cultural Anthropology, Utrecht University)Power(s) on display: de/sacralization as dis/empowerment in the lives of shrine artifacts from Ghana Marleen de Witte (Independent Researcher, Amsterdam)Virtual Profanations: Immersive Media and the Productive Unruliness of Desacralization Ernst van den Hemel (Meertens Institute Amsterdam, Utrecht University) 14.50 – 15.10 coffee break 15:10 – 17:00 session 3Mills and (De/Re-)Sacralization. Some Uncombed Thoughts Jojada Verrips (professor emeritus Anthropology of Europe, University of Amsterdam) Being the Son of a Geologist Doesn’t Add up to Much. Embracing the Poetics of the Miracle of Saint Rochus Mattijs van de Port (Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam) Launch special issue Heritage &amp; Society Contentious Matter: Moral economies and the Commodification of Traumatic Heritage Duane Jethro and Irene Stengs (guest editors) 17:00 drinks-- Image: Example of ‘sacred waste': After the assassination of journalist and cold case investigator Peter R. De Vries 6 July 2021), attributes commemorating his death piled up. What to do with the tremendous quantities of commemorative materials? Photo: 21 July 2021

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Symposium Unpacking the Unruly: Paradoxes of Sacralization/Desacralization

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