Autobiographical Materiality and Meaningful Objects of Home

Authors

• Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9056-4982
• Anna Kajander http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3523-3889

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30666/elore.142666

Keywords:

objects, affects, assemblages, materiality, home, curation, autobiographical approach

Abstract

This article focuses on the autobiographical materiality of home, which refers to the entanglement of life history and domestic objects. We ask what kinds of objects are autobiographical and how autobiographical memories and experiences affect human–object relationships in the context of home. We analysed texts from the Elämäni esineet (‘material objects from my life’) call for life-writing counting and categorising the objects mentioned using Voyant tools and analysing thematically how emotions, memories and temporal layers affect the materiality of home and connect with changes of domestic materiality. The article discusses combining the autobiographical perspective with the concept of home curation to scrutinise the process of selecting and reflecting on the number and qualities of everyday objects.