The Absent Stone

“In her brilliant ethnography of Mexico’s ‘Tlaloc’ monolith, Rozental reveals how territory—national, local, material, symbolic—is made and remade through relations between human, non, or more-than-human, agents within socio-spatial ecologies. Through the story of this iconic stone, she makes timely interventions into the politics of repatriation and debates over monumental heritage, revealing the creative strategies for repair generated by and for communities living in the wake of cultural theft.”—Mary K. Coffey, author of, Orozco's Epic: Myth, History, and the Melancholy of Race

“This is an outstanding and fascinating contribution to debates about heritage and the affective power of objects. Based on incredibly rich fieldwork and archival work, Rozental artfully examines the many tensions that exist between the Mexican state’s appropriation and monumentalization of ‘The Stone of Tlaloc’ and the experience of residents who feel robed of a beloved local object and are haunted by its absence.”—Gastón Gordillo, author of, Rubble: The Afterlife of Destruction