Tingenes radikale biografi. Etnografika analysert gjennom arbeidsgrupper

Abstract

This paper explores the possibility of radicalizing the biography of things by analysing ethnographic items through a working group. The literature concerning the life of things and their biography concerns itself with how humans imbue things with meaning. Things themselves become portrayed as relatively passive, silent and inactive. An alternative is to explore how things (ethnographic items) enact the social situation of which they are a part. The assumption is that things are not enclosed passive entities. Rather, they effect change. A working group analysis investigates how humans and nonhumans become with each other. As these entanglements unfold, new members in the assemblage cause change in the composition of the working group. This effectuates the very dynamics of the assemblage. I explore the changes that ethnographic items undergo as they participate in craft practices, trade practices and museum practices.