Souvenirs' at the margin? : place, commodities, transformations and the symbolic in Buddha sculptures from Luang Prabang, Laos

By examining the social life of carved Buddha sculptures, this chapter argues that the conception of the 'souvenir' is too limiting, and these objects, carry significance that is simultaneously central and marginal to the material culture of the heritage city of Luang Prabang, in Laos, because of the various transformations they undergo. Our starting point is, therefore, not the souvenir per se (with its inescapable connotations relating to memory and remembrance) but material culture (and the social and cultural entanglements implied) more broadly conceived. Here, it is possible to discern a social/cultural process in Luang Prabang that produces souvenirs as multi-faceted objects that interrogate the commonly understood meaning of tourist keepsakes and in so doing can be simultaneously marginal and central. This argument requires two contextual overviews: Luang Prabang, the city (a place produced by local-global flows) and an ethnography of commodities.