STREAM 4 MATERIAL CULTURE AND IDENTITY / Gabriele Alex (Tuebingen) & Sarah Holst Kjaer (Stockholm)

In this stream, we explore the links between materiality/material culture and identity. We are asking how people relate to the world around them, such as e.g. the urban landscape, monuments, the lived-in environments but also those objects and materialities that frame our everyday life with different functions and in different ways. To understand these relationships and to look at them with comparative perspective throws light on the construction of identity, belonging, as well as marginalization or exclusion. We will start with lectures and texts, students will do a small exercise while still being at their home universities. In Tübingen we will visit the Lindenmuseum and approach this topic with a museum-focused perspective. Students will then do little groupworks and practice methods and get a practical insight into this approach. We will then prepare a presentation and discuss how this knowledge and practice can support e.g. community-building or inclusion processes.