A qualitative exploration of memory cuing by personal items in the home

Abstract

We are surrounded by personal items that can trigger memories, such as photos, souvenirs and heirlooms. Also during holidays, we collect items to remind us of the events, but not all bring back memories to the same extent. Therefore, we explored peoples’ responses to personal items related to a holiday, using the home tour interviewing method. In total, 63 accounts of cuing responses from nine home tours were analysed using thematic analysis. This resulted in four types of cuing responses: (a) ‘no-memory’ responses, (b) ‘know’ responses, (c) ‘memory evoked think or feel’ responses and (d) ‘remember’ responses. For each of these cuing response categories, we looked into the types of items and their characteristics. Furthermore, we found that some items can evoke multiple memories. The majority of the memories’ content refers to events close to the moment of acquiring the item.

Memories reminisced, reconciled, renewed: Hong Kong male consumers’ wardrobes and their search for a congruent self

“…While we find the affective approach productive in theorising fashion consumption and destabilising a hierarchical subject-object relationship, we argue that memory – situated somewhere between the subject’s conscious self and the material fashion objects – also plays a vital role in mediating the relationship between the two. In other words, how the affects, feelings and emotions attached to fashion and clothing objects – both active and inactive – evoke and are evoked by the consumer’s ongoing reminiscence, reconciliation, and renewal of past memories as well as how the tripartite self-memory-object relationships evolve across time is still underexplored (Brown and Reavey, 2014; Freeman et al, 2016; Odabasi, 2022; Zijlema et al, 2019). In consumption studies, how memory (as an actant) works in associating and framing our sense of self and identity through interacting with certain material objects, in this case fashion and clothing items, deserves in-depth analysis.…”

“…These ‘things’ have rubbed up against the human in a memorable way over time, and the process creates traces of past experiences with and held within them, eventually becoming part of a meaningful ‘mnemonic assemblage’ (Freeman et al, 2016: 5). Rather than being stored in the consumer’s mind, these memories have been relocalised into the clothing and accessory items, which function as an ‘external memory cluing’ system (Zijlema et al, 2019: 378). Woodward and Greasley (2017) have shown that looking at wardrobes and music collections as personal assemblages – that include both ‘things at rest’ (Banim and Guy, 2003) and items for daily use – gives a more complete understanding of contemporary consumption.…”

“…Fashion ‘things at rest’ (Banim and Guy, 2003) stowed away in one’s wardrobes and clothing racks are not necessarily separated from daily social practices but kept for a range of different reasons: some are primarily valued for their utilitarian qualities; some for the symbolic or personal values they represent; some merely ‘superficially [touch] the memory and [evoke] mainly semantic knowledge regarding the associated events’, and some are filled with vital memories that ‘reflect the personal self and personal relationships’ (Zijlema et al, 2019: 379). Significantly, the difference between a memory inducer and a general object is often blurred, as the role of an item can switch between a utilitarian role and a memory inducer (Zijlema et al, 2019).…”

“…Fashion ‘things at rest’ (Banim and Guy, 2003) stowed away in one’s wardrobes and clothing racks are not necessarily separated from daily social practices but kept for a range of different reasons: some are primarily valued for their utilitarian qualities; some for the symbolic or personal values they represent; some merely ‘superficially [touch] the memory and [evoke] mainly semantic knowledge regarding the associated events’, and some are filled with vital memories that ‘reflect the personal self and personal relationships’ (Zijlema et al, 2019: 379). Significantly, the difference between a memory inducer and a general object is often blurred, as the role of an item can switch between a utilitarian role and a memory inducer (Zijlema et al, 2019). These vital memories embedded in things one cannot simply choose to remember or completely forgo , but they are thoroughly interdependent with past and ongoing relationships with significant others, often incongruent, and require considerable and ongoing work to establish a congruent present image of the self and a linear cultural script of development (Conway and Jobson, 2012), at times over the course of one’s life (Brown and Reavey, 2014: 329).…”

Cued recall: Using photo-elicitation to examine the distributed processes of remembering with photographs

“…Further, they are not the only relevant considerations. For example, looking at a photo can evoke abstract feelings and association without recalling specific events (Zijlema et al, 2019).…”