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Article
Publication date: 16 August 2018

Helen J. Waller and David S. Waller

The purpose of this paper is to observe the nature of documentation and the description used in object biographies by an auction house catalogue and an online museum collection…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to observe the nature of documentation and the description used in object biographies by an auction house catalogue and an online museum collection database in relation opera costumes. This research aims to discuss the issues of cultural and economic value in relation to objects in the art world, and examine examples of object biographies for opera costumes that are sold at an auction and exhibited in a museum.

Design/methodology/approach

The object biographies are compared from an auction house catalogue and the online museum collection database, based on two factors: costumes worn by a famous singer and costumes designed by a famous designer.

Findings

This study identified the valuation methods of auction houses and museums, including accounting for the market value and fair value, as well as social and cultural values. The nature of the documentation also clearly shows the different purpose of the object biographies. For auction houses the biography needs to be short and specific as it provides sufficient information and is read out at the auction, while art catalogues can also be used by experts as part of the conversation to understanding heritage value, and will also be viewed and used by researchers, investors, other auction house specialists and art world professionals.

Research limitations/implications

By comparing two institutions, auction houses and museums, this study has shown that the information that is documented and how it is presented in object biographies is determined by the goals of the institutions. These goals may vary or overlap in providing information, demonstrating cultural importance, to be spoken allowed to an audience and make sales, or to educate, conserve and preserve.

Practical implications

This study shows that to some extent museum online databases display their collection removed from cultural context, with an isolated image of the item, and in an organised, digitally accessible manner. A potential implication is that museums should not only digitally catalogue an item, but also provide discussion and the cultural background and significance of the item.

Social implications

Auction catalogues are written for a specific event (the auction), while the online museum collection database is meant to be a permanent record, which aims to digitally preserve objects and provide access to images and information to a general audience, and further could be edited with amendments or new information when future research or events lead to potential updates.

Originality/value

This study adds to the discourse on approaches to the understanding of costumes as an art object of significance and their potential cultural, economic and heritage value, particularly as represented in the documentation of object biographies.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 74 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 February 2020

Kathy Carbone

The purpose of this paper is to report the results of an ethnographic study that used object biography with an archival collection of police surveillance files, the Police…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to report the results of an ethnographic study that used object biography with an archival collection of police surveillance files, the Police Historical/Archival Investigative Files, housed at the City of Portland Archives & Records Center in Portland, Oregon.

Design/methodology/approach

Document analysis, participant observation, semistructured interviews, and object biography were conducted over four years, from 2013 to 2017.

Findings

Using object biography with the Police Historical/Archival Investigative Files uncovered numerous personal and public relationships that developed between people and this collection over several decades as well as how these records acquired, constructed, and changed meanings over time and space.

Originality/value

This paper argues that the biography of objects is a useful way for studying the relationships records form, the values people assign to them, and how people and records mutually inform and transform one another in shifting contexts of social lives. Recognizing records as having social histories and applying object biography to them contributes to and grows the greater biography and genealogy of the record and the archive—a genealogy important not only for discovering something about the lives of those who create, encounter, steward, and use records and archives but about our shared human experience.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 76 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 16 September 2014

Péter Berta

This paper delineates the proprietary contest developed around a highly valued prestige item: a silver roofed tankard owned by a Romanian, Gabor Roma man.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper delineates the proprietary contest developed around a highly valued prestige item: a silver roofed tankard owned by a Romanian, Gabor Roma man.

Design/methodology/approach

The author applies “methodological fetishism” (Appadurai, 1986, p. 5), the perspective of things-in-motion, as well as the biographic method to interpret data collected during 31.5 months of multi-sited anthropological fieldwork carried out in the Transylvanian Gabor and Cărhar Roma groups.

Findings

As the tankard in question crossed the borders of three Transylvanian Roma groups, and thus went through the processes of de- and re-contextualization three times, it is characterized by a transethnic/transcultural biography. This paper pays special attention to the agency associated with the tankard (the social and economic practices, processes and emotions it caused or influenced), the transformations concerning its symbolic properties, and its movement between various social contexts and value regimes. Furthermore, it examines how the analysis of these issues contributes to a deeper understanding of prestige relations and consumption, morality and business ethics, and measures of success in two Transylvanian Roma groups.

Originality/value

This paper reveals how subjects create, manipulate, and represent their identities, and social and economic differences through the construction of commodity biographies and ownership histories interpreted as symbolic pantheons. By combining the terms of Marcus (1995) and Fowles (2006), it argues that analyses based on multi-sited fieldwork focusing on commodities crossing cultural or social boundaries, and their transnational/transcultural biographies, should be defined as multi-sited commodity ethnographies.

Details

Production, Consumption, Business and the Economy: Structural Ideals and Moral Realities
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-055-1

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 January 2021

Anna Griffith, Mary Brigit Carroll and Oliver Farrell

This paper focuses on the donation in 1888 of a Sèvres Vase to the Education Department of Victoria after the International Exhibition in Melbourne. Using the vase as its focus…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper focuses on the donation in 1888 of a Sèvres Vase to the Education Department of Victoria after the International Exhibition in Melbourne. Using the vase as its focus the paper reflects on what this donation may be able to tell us about the impact, primarily on education, of a series of International Exhibitions held both in Australia and internationally between 1851 and 1900. The life of the Sèvres vase highlights the potential of the Exhibitions for the exchange of ideas internationally, the influence of the International Exhibition movement on education and the links between a 19th-century gift and the teaching of Art in 1930s Melbourne.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper examines one object in relation to education in its wider historical context through a reading of the archival records relating to the Melbourne Teacher’s Training College and Melbourne High School.

Findings

The influence of the educational exhibits of the 1888 Centennial International Exhibition held in Melbourne are shown to have had an impact on the design of the Melbourne Teachers Training College.

Originality/value

This paper provides a new and original perspective on the Melbourne Teachers Training College and its foundation through its library and museum collections.

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 17 January 2022

Emmanuel Garnier and Florence Lahournat

The paper focuses on an aspect of disaster often overlooked by experts: that of disaster memory both as a prevention tool and one potentially contributing to the resilience of…

2133

Abstract

Purpose

The paper focuses on an aspect of disaster often overlooked by experts: that of disaster memory both as a prevention tool and one potentially contributing to the resilience of vulnerable communities in Japan. The objective is, more specifically, to explore one specific source of disaster memory in Japan, namely the disaster-related stone monuments scattered throughout the archipelago.

Design/methodology/approach

To achieve the goals, the authors have studied several types of materials. First, the authors have used the “Natural Disaster Monument” online database compiled by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GIS), data upon which the authors based the field research study, focused on water-related disaster in Otsu city (Shiga Prefecture). Simultaneously, the authors have systematically searched Japanese newspapers since the middle of the 19th century as well as the archives of Shiga prefecture in order to collect additional information on the statistical reality of these monuments, the context of their creation and in order to better estimate the severity of our case studies.

Findings

First, the findings show that stone monuments are indeed structuring elements of disaster memory in Japan. Not only are they present throughout the archipelago, but in addition, they are still for the most part visited by local communities. Second, the findings show how this material culture of disaster, as a vector of disaster memory, could be used as a tool to better understand and bring awareness to the occurrence of specific hazards, especially to future generations.

Originality/value

The authors promote an interdisciplinary approach by associating anthropology and history. The study offers a new and original character about an object of study relating to both the cultural and historical fields but still often neglected as a tool and object of research in DDR. The authors provide a method and suggest ways to integrate these stone monuments into DDR policies. Finally, the authors propose to better integrate these monuments into the overall reflection on disaster awareness and disaster mitigation.

Details

Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, vol. 31 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-3562

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 19 October 2020

Kathryn L. Ness Swanson

This chapter explores ways to think about historical “stuff” and how to use objects to create a rich presentation and understanding of both time periods and historical figures…

Abstract

This chapter explores ways to think about historical “stuff” and how to use objects to create a rich presentation and understanding of both time periods and historical figures. Items can help “set the stage” while also offering insight into subtle details about specific people, like their tastes and movements and whether they were right- or left-handed. These details help make the past come alive and provide avenues for people to make deep personal connections with historical events and figures. For teachers, objects can enrich their lessons by literally setting the stage with the items that witnessed historical activities and periods. Their students, on the other hand, might find that objects can help turn abstract historical events and figures into tangible happenings and people. This chapter discusses material culture studies and ways to interrogate objects before examining how objects can help inform interpretation.

Book part
Publication date: 16 August 2010

Péter Berta

This chapter focuses on brokerage in the prestige economy of the Gabor Roma ethnic subgroup in Romania. It argues that the necessity of the brokers’ employment as well as their…

Abstract

This chapter focuses on brokerage in the prestige economy of the Gabor Roma ethnic subgroup in Romania. It argues that the necessity of the brokers’ employment as well as their economic importance comes from the significant uncertainty characterising the prestige-object transactions, that is, these brokers are occasional entrepreneurs specialised in risk management. The theoretical purpose of the chapter is to demonstrate that brokers and goods mediated by them can be associated with more than one socially constructed transactional identity (cultural, political, economic, etc.) at the same time. It also aims to highlight the shifting nature of these identities – they are not constant and context-free qualities, but highly context-sensitive social constructions that can appear in various combinations.

Details

Economic Action in Theory and Practice: Anthropological Investigations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-118-4

Book part
Publication date: 22 November 2014

Helene Cherrier, Meltem Türe and Nil Özçağlar-Toulouse

Based on Latour’s view that humans and non-humans swap properties, this paper explores whether objects embody similar properties as human beings and whether these properties per se

Abstract

Purpose

Based on Latour’s view that humans and non-humans swap properties, this paper explores whether objects embody similar properties as human beings and whether these properties per se orient dispossession practices.

Methodology/approach

This study adopts Latour’s pragmatogonies as a theoretical perspective to explore the complex interplay between humans and non-humans in the context of dispossession. Thirty-two in-depth interviews focus on the object itself (its characteristics, qualities, and capacities in association with its endo and exo relations) to understand how objects act on dispossession.

Findings

The results depict objects as consisting of various material elements and possessing symmetrical properties as humans to facilitate, hinder, and channel dispossession. Objects emerge as having genealogies, undergoing physical changes, adapting to misfortunes, and having citizenship duties.

Research Limitations/implications

Our analyses reveal a complex network of people and things; all acting in the course of dispossession. We call for further research on object–subject networks/assemblages as dynamic and co-productive. We suggest that research focus should be on what objects might become or how they connect and evolve as they deteriorate, shift, and renew in interaction with their environment.

Originality/value of paper

Our study challenges the dichotomy between material objects and human beings. We underline that objects are not ephemeral and transient but they are moving and circulating as they deteriorate, transform, enact new roles, and construct evolving identities.

Details

Consumer Culture Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-158-9

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 10 April 2019

Omar Khaled Abdelrahman, Emma Banister and Daniel Hampson

Purpose: Curatorial consumption studies have hitherto focused on the consumption of family heirlooms. By exploring curatorial consumption within the context of vintage outlets

Abstract

Purpose: Curatorial consumption studies have hitherto focused on the consumption of family heirlooms. By exploring curatorial consumption within the context of vintage outlets, the authors extend its usage to other consumption sites, allowing them to further develop the construct.

Design/Methodology/Approach: Participant observation was employed at vintage outlets alongside in-depth interviews with 15 vintage traders incorporating object elicitation.

Findings: The authors identify the potential for curatorial consumption to help further develop understanding of individuals’ relationships with their possessions. The authors present a re-contextualization of curatorial consumption, which expands the term beyond caring for family heirlooms, allowing them to incorporate additional contexts. The authors identify vintage traders’ roles as guardians for their merchandise and their sense of responsibility to ensure objects’ circulation to future generations. The authors develop the findings around themes related to curation: acquisition, preservation, and transference. Running through these themes is an overarching concern for historical objects.

Originality/Value: While few studies loosely refer to curatorial consumption, the construct remains underdeveloped. The re-contextualization allows to unpack its potential to enhance understanding of individuals’ relationships with their possessions. In contrast to existing curatorial consumption work that emphasizes the sense of continuity with ancestors, the authors extend this to consider how connections with the past can be maintained beyond local family settings.

Details

Consumer Culture Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78754-285-3

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 October 2018

Costanza Caraffa

This paper aims at demonstrating how the material approach questions conventional hierarchies of photographic value, showing a way to deal with large quantities of photographs…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims at demonstrating how the material approach questions conventional hierarchies of photographic value, showing a way to deal with large quantities of photographs accumulated by scientific and scholarly disciplines in their archives.

Design/methodology/approach

For generations, these photographs have been considered as pure documentations of the objects represented in them (from artworks in museums to snowflakes under a microscope). Documentary photographs have been understood as mere working tools that can now be easily replaced by digital duplicates. Overcoming the long-established reduction of photographs to their visual content, the material approach shifts attention to masses of anonymous photographs that are often disregarded within institutions because they do not match museum systems of value based on uniqueness and authorship.

Findings

Focussing on photographic and archival practices in art history, this paper aims at demonstrating how conceptual and methodological tools such as “agency” and “materiality” can be made fruitful for theory and practice of photo archives able to explore their epistemological potential. A case study from the Photothek of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz allows an insight into historical and contemporary dynamics and practices of photographic archives.

Originality/value

With its interwoven strands of archival practice and academic research, the Photothek unboxes itself as a laboratory for the international, cross-disciplinary debate on the role and function of photographs and photographic archives in scholarship, suggesting a methodological path for the entire field. In conclusion, the paper shows that the first necessary step for a long-term conservation of photo archives is promoting research on the photographic objects.

Details

Collection and Curation, vol. 37 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2514-9326

Keywords

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