Constructing Collection: Possibilities and Perspectives

• In Event: Collecting as a Hobby

Abstract

Collection as an activity includes the technology-mediated tasks of finding, acquiring, storing and sharing of objects or artifacts. While the technologies used to aid in these activities is reflective of a particular STS context, the artifacts being collected ("collectibles") may cut across these spatial and temporal boundaries. Thus, a coin collector in present-day France having a passion for collecting Ptolemic coins, in a sense, makes present the science, technology and society of a different time and space. From a more social standpoint, are not all communities, collectives or collections of people who share common characteristics and behavior? Animals too may be seen as collectors - think of pack-rats, birds building nests, ants and bees storing food. From a more abstract perspective, are we not, both collections and collectors? Not just of bone, sinew and body parts, but also of thoughts, memories, emotions, hopes and fears? Thus, on the one the hand construction of the idea of collection shapes the possibilities that open up, on the other, the activities of the collectors are shaped by the technologies used to perform them. From an STS perspective, it does seem to completely fit either the idea of social construction or of autonomous technologies, yet what we collect, consciously or otherwise, in a sense, is indicative of our identity. In the session, I will speak about an ongoing study that uses the framework of collection for studying the use of the internet in India.

Author

• Ravi Shukla, Jawaharlal Nehru University