As biografias dos objectos

Vaso Campaniforme de Ciempozuelos (c. 2200-1500 a.C., Museu Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid).

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«In doing the biography of a thing, one would ask questions similar to those one asks about people: What, sociologically, are the biographical possibilities inherent in its “status” and in the period and culture, and how are the possibilities realized? Where does the thing come from and who made it? What has been its career so far, and what do people consider to be an ideal career for such thing? What are recognized “ages” or periods in the thing’s “life”, and what are the cultural markers for them? How does the thing’s use change with its age, and what happens to it when it reaches the end of its usefulness?»

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Igor Kopytoff, «The cultural biography of things: commodization as process», pp. 66-67.

Pessoas

Pablo Picasso, Portrait of the artist's wife (Olga) (1923, in Old Paint).

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«One of this predispositions (…): that of conceptually separating people from things, and of seeing people as the natural preserve for individuation (that is singularization) and things as the natural preserve for commoditization (…)». 

«There is, therefore, a perennial moral concern in Western thought, whatever the ideological position of the thinker, about the commodization of human attributes such as labor, intellect or creativity (…)».

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Igor Kopytoff, «The cultural biography of things: commodization as process», p. 84.

Sobre a cultura, a propósito de uma visita ao Palácio de Sintra

 

Palácio Nacional de Sintra (2012).

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«The counterdrive to this potential onrush of commoditization is culture. In the sense that commoditization homogenizes value, while the essence of culture is discrimination, excessive commoditization is anti-cultural (…). (…) societies need to set apart a certain portion of their environment, marking it as “sacred” (…). Culture ensures that some things remain unambiguously singular, it resists the commoditization of others; and it sometimes resingularizes what has been commoditized». 

«Such singularization is sometimes extended to things that are normally commodities – in effect are singulrized by being pulled out of their usual commodity sphere (…)».

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Igor Kopytoff, «The cultural biography of things: commodization as process», pp. 73-74.