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. e literature concerning the life of things and their biography concerns itself with how humans imbue things with meaning. ings 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. e assumption is that things are not enclosed passive entities. Rather, they e ect 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. is e ectuates the very dynamics of the assemblage. I explore the changes that ethnographic items undergo as they participate in cra practices, trade practices and museum practices.