Life Story of Objects. Contributions of biographical method to cultural studies of design: Life story of handblender

Identifier:  TDX:2125

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX2125

Authors:  Povedano Ferré, Rosa

Abstract:
This research tries to use the approach to study the vital trajectory of some persons used frequently in social and cultural anthropology -and in other disciplines-, called biographical method, and apply it to objects that surround us to deal with the biography of things or artefacts. The main methodological challenge of this approach consists in discern which are the life periods of an object to define its lifetime. The experiences that some persons share with objects can be classified in many categories. The relations that establish, for example, the factory workers , the shop assistants, the consumers, or the collectors or the antique dealers, with the same artefact would be very different. For that reason it is possible to assert that an object has as many life stories as people having shared relations or experiences with it. And, with the accounts of all these persons, the same object can become a tool to deepen knowledge in the cultural studies.In order to execute a case study applying the biographical method to objects, I have chosen the handblender, a very popular artefact in catalan culinary culture. It is also important to emphasize that this electrical appliance has not suffered changes in its typology despite the economic, social and cultural transformations which took place since the moment of its appearance.The main objective at the beginning of this research was to bring the accounts of different persons face to face with the theoretical tradition of design, considering this like an activity to produce artefacts of massive use starting with industrial processes. Getting deeper in this study, I noticed that by applying the biographical method to the objects it is possible not only to get the exploration of the different kind of relationships we stablish with the objects, but also to elaborate a study of reference about social and cultural context with very profitable results. Regarding the practical application of this kind of study, I believe that it is also an interesting challenge to analise the achieved information and value how this can be used later in the methodological process to design another electrical appliance of same or similar characteristics.