ABSTRACT
The self is invariably shaped in complex relation to the objects that surround it. We are defined in respect of our tastes – through styles of furniture, clothing, cars; through our predilection for sun-dried tomatoes, for malt whisky, for abstract art, or whatever. Interactions with materials testify to who we are, and according to some anthropologists, the belongings we accrue might even be understood as extensions of our personhood, with blurred lines between subjects and the objects they accrue.1 Our things publically proclaim something of our identities in a much more obvious sense than our names or our fleeting spoken words.
