Revealing the meaning of home possessions: designing, keeping, and material identity

This study investigates the way meanings associated with everyday, material home possessions develop. It is a study of what influences these meanings, and how they build, ebb or flow to create value in an object. It examines how the meanings are acquired and how they evolve through practices of keeping in the home, and how this could inform approaches to design for emotional longevity. This is an established area of research and practice concerned with designing products that can hold lasting emotional attachments (van Hinte 1997 and 2004, Chapman 2005, Haug 2019). The study takes an experimental approach to method design, prioritising hands-on practical experiences for participants. The methods incorporate artefacts, either physically present or recalled through memory by participants, as a prompt for reflection and relating of the story of encounter and ownership. Participant sketching activities provide a means of active reflection, as a way of capturing affective responses, and for considering the physical circumstances of an artefact. These approaches are integrated with semi-structured interviews. Rather than focus on treasured possessions, which have been well studied, the study focuses on the uncherished. This approach builds a more informative picture of meaning as mutable and dynamic, waxing and waning to offer new understandings of emotional longevity in objects. They include uncherished gifts, antique ceramics, computing devices and fast fashion homewares. The methods have produced situated, interpretive knowledge of our affective relationships with everyday possessions, and surfaced their complexity and texture. The study makes methodological contributions to knowledge for revealing meaning and affect associated with possessions. It also offers new understandings of emotional longevity in objects, including the critical role of human practices and the material surroundings of the home. The study has been undertaken as an article based doctorate, by prospective publication.