Dr. DeLyser is a professor at the Department of Geography and Environment at California State University, Fullerton. She is interested in geography, social memory, practice, behavior, tourism, and mobility. In particular, as a cultural historical geographer, she deals with cultural processes and politics from a geographic point of view. She is currently an editor-in-chief of the SSCI journal, cultural geographies. Her major books and articles include Qualitative Methods in Human Geography (2016), Careful work: building public cultural geographies (2016), Collecting, Kitsch, and the Intimate Geographies of Social Memory: A Story of Archival Autoethnography ”(2015).
In this talk, Dydia DeLyser reviewed the restoration process of the three Indian motorcycles, pointing out the growing interest in materials, emotions and labor among geologists. She pointed out that restoration as a skilled practice links material conduct with labor of love and devotion. “This commitment to things can be a provocative counter-discourse to the unsustainable” write and throw away “society of the anthropology tax.” The talks showed that emotional labor, commitment to materials, and handicraft skills can create a positive path for creating, restoring, and maintaining our physical world.