BIOGRAFISKE SAMLINGER: Subjektivitet, identitet og materielle livshistorier

Resumé

The article is approaching the sensory and the

material, memory and private reminiscence,

objects and time from the perspective of

ethnology. It is an attempt to provide an

understanding of the relation between people

and objects in a biographical perspective. It

is argued that the act of keeping and saving is

a kind of technology of the self. Biographical

objects, because of their materiality and

sensory qualities constitute our picture of

our own past, stimulate remembering, store

information beyond individual experience,

and are instrumental to the formation of

consciousness and identity. Biographical

collections are the result of saving, not just

casual keeping of objects connected with

a person’s own life history. Thus, they are

material life stories.