BIOGRAPHICAL METHOD APPLIED TO OBJECTS

One methodological tool for qualitative research wich has more interest in social science fields is the biographical method. Throughout the people’s life stories, antropology, sociology, oral history and psicology interpret the cultural and social course, historical feelings, personal development and more. Applying the biographical method to design, lets us study the life story of daily objects to deepen in personal, cultural and social significations.

The life stories of people take into account different stages and phases to define the vital status (childhood, adolescence, marriage…) and also external events (political changes, natural disasters, war…). The application of biographical methods to objects must specify wich are the stages and phases needed to come in an artifacts life course.

As Kopytoff said, one object has many life stories as many characters had been in contact with it. The significance for the manufacturer, designers, factory workers, vendors, consumers and others, would be, in fact, very different (kopytoff, 1991).

So, if we research into the discourses of all characters involved in the different phases of its life, the object became a prodigious link between social and cultural significances. The confrontation of many people’s life stories convert the artifact into a complex interpretation tool in social sciences. For design, it offers the possibility to explain social and cultural trascendence of objects during its life and to add qualitative data to methodological process.

Kopytoff, Igor (1991) “Cultural Biography of things”, in Appadurai, Arjun The social Life of things (AppaduraiI, Arjun.- La vida social de las cosas. Grijalbo. Mexico, pp.89-122)