History

Family Bible and Tree

12:12:12 on the 12th December 2012 occurred today. This was history and it will not happen again - or anything like it until another century. Time marches on relentlessly and knows no sentiment. We go forwards (or we think we do) or perhaps even backwards (a matter of debate perhaps by physicists - but what do they know?)

The family bible is a lovely old book and contains a lot of useful additional information. It is basically a bible but contains a part of a family tree. This provides stories and facts about events. Of course this is all open to interpretation and is contextual based on time, place and culture. In academic terms this may be considered a boundary object - it is a material artifact that can pass between people with different views, history, culture, context. It is then interpreted in different ways. It can be used in different ways for different purposes. The artifact is all the time immutable however. We can add to it, amend it, reinvent it. It can then change our view of the world. We can then modify the record. The record becomes a little part of us; and so it goes on and on. It can become a boundary spanner and bridge different worlds. To someone it might just be an old bible and not a family history.

So, there is a lot to think about in a book, and about this particular artifact. It is a blend of the material and the social. It is sociomaterial. It becomes an entanglement in practice.

Sociomaterial artifacts....boundary objects ....who would have them?