132 | Page DzI Discard, Therefore I Amdz: Identity and Leave- Taking of Possessions Monica L. Smith Department of Anthropology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1553 (smith@anthro.ucla.edu) ABSTRACT: The human engagement with material culture is usually analyzed in terms of production, distribution, and consumption. Each of these stages is indicative of decision- making: in the fashioning of objects, their circulation in the social realm (through gift, trade, or theft), and their use by the recipient(s). No less complex a phenomenon is what follows consumption: discard. Studies of the placement of trash in both modern and ancient contexts provide insights on the way in which the leave-taking of possessions is as pointed a statement of identity as their production, circulation and possession. This paper considers both sacred and secular trash as a component of material culture and identity, using examples from contemporary South Asia and from the ancient urban site of Sisupalgarh in eastern India. I would like to start this paper with a brief anecdote about something that I recently witnessed in the neighborhood that I go through on the way to my university. This is a rather nice neighborhood, in which the morning commute is populated by, among other people, the nannies and maids who walk from the bus stop to the homes where they work. One day I saw a pair of women walking along the sidewalk as they passed a little piece of public land that has been made into a landscaped green space. One of them finished the snack that she had been eating, and threw her wrapper aside into one of the bushes. Now, here was a person who was going to spend the rest of her day cleaning up after other people, and who probably had impeccable standards of cleanliness in her own home. But the act of discard in a public place said a great deal about her perceptions of the social, class, and ethnic distinctions that accompanied the transition into her neighborhood of work. The rich irony of this scenario, and the potential for trash to serve as an expression of autonomy, provides a window into a reconsideration of discard in the archaeological record. As a person can physically handle only a limited amount of objects at any given moment, the setting-down of some items is inevitable. At what point in the process of putting-down do those objects become ―abandoned‖ς What prompts the individual to actively discard unwanted items as a deliberate act of making ―trash‖ς How, when, and where do individuals discard their unwanted items? When does the violence of the act of discard emphasize the individual‘s understanding of the object‘s capacity for meaning and memory, ranging from the gentle afterthought of littering to the forceful hurtling of an undesired item? How are differing understandings of trash negotiated and engaged with by individuals living in close proximity? And under what circumstances does trash become the focus of ritual and social activity? In Identity Crisis: Archaeological Perspectives on Social Identity [Proceedings of the 42nd (2010) Annual Chacmool Archaeology Conference], edited by Lindsay Amundsen-Pickering, Nicole Engel, and Sean Pickering, pp. 132-142. Chacmool Archaeological Association, University of Calgary, 2011.