The object biography

Abstract

Although object biographies focus on material objects, the objects demonstrate the insignificance of things as much as their significance and can lead to a range of ways of framing the culture concept. This chapter discusses the Object Biography, an intellectual exercise examining and describing the social life of one particular object. They deal with truths more than facts, like human biographies, histories, or the clandestine genre entitled 'true crime.' An object biography is a deliberate methodological undertaking aimed to raise the critical perspective and alternative frameworks for understanding culture. A biography describes uses, identities, experiences, and relationships that different phases of its life enable. An object biography, by contrast, is focused on an object, rather than persons, examining a specific life of a specific object over time, and is more about exchange and transmission than it is about productive work.