{"id":95,"date":"2023-02-17T13:08:30","date_gmt":"2023-02-17T18:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/xlab\/?p=95"},"modified":"2023-02-17T13:08:30","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T18:08:30","slug":"the-collector-psychology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/xlab\/2023\/the-collector-psychology\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cCollector Psychology\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Katherine Davidson is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. <\/a><\/em>Many, many thanks to Tina Nichol for the conversation which led to this blog topic.<\/i><\/p>\n

I have been wrapping up my doctoral fieldwork over the last few months, where I am exploring the meaning that understudied collections have for First Nations and Metis in Ontario. A fascinating question keeps coming up in discussions with participants and various stakeholders:<\/p>\n

\u201cThose people [who collect artifacts], what makes them want to keep it so bad? It\u2019s not mine to keep, so what attracts people to that kind of treasure? Why are people obsessed with these trinkets?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This feeling that artifacts don\u2019t belong to us individually is not a novel concept; heritage professionals generally understand that publicly-held collections are kept for Posterity (the people of the future). The above quote came from one of the workshops I held for my research, and is an interesting question about concepts of ownership of artifacts among descendant populations \u2013 I hope to explore that more. But the individuals who possess collections \u2013 especially ones that belong with a local museum \u2013 skirt these commonly-held understandings of importance for the wider community. Why?<\/p>\n

\"\"

Romain Huneau, via unsplash<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

In a recent interview on the Comics and Crypto Podcast, licensing mogul Alfred Kahn stated that status, peer pressure and scarcity are the main driving psychological factors behind collecting. He suggested that the current boom in Pok\u00e9mon collecting, the Cabbage Patch Kids craze in the 1980s, and even the popularity of NFTs and other blockchain-based exchange methods also fell under the similar ethos of collecting.<\/p>\n

In our chapter on taste formation and performance in the online human remains trade (Davidson et al. 2021), we discussed the idea of Veblen goods and the perceived conspicuous consumption of Veblen goods creating (for some people) an attraction to collecting human remains. Because we understand, from a heritage perspective, that these objects are unique and have individual stories to tell, we treat them as having a \u201cone of a kind\u201d story to tell (Davidson et al. 2021: 35). However, that does not translate into any kind of monetary value (nor should it, because that is a gross violation of ethical practices).<\/p>\n

Similarly, considering the relative frequency of common artifact types in museum collections, the actual rarity of artifacts would be called into question. The average collector may not understand \u2013 contrary to what they may have learned from Antiques Roadshow – that the object they took is more valuable left where they found it, especially if they can take a geolocated photo. (It follows that museum collections may be seen as a kind of \u201cwar chest\u201d owned by colonial governments, but that is a discussion for another time).<\/p>\n

\"\"

regularguy.eth via unsplash<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

In our present capitalistic society, those motivating factors of status, peer pressure and scarcity motivate collectors to seek (increasingly) rare objects in the hope or belief that it will bring them status. There is also the consideration that as archaeological sites are destroyed, or as artifacts are taken out of \u201ccirculation\u201d (through consumption or \u201cterminal commoditization\u201d into institutional collections), artifacts are presumed to become \u201crarer\u201d through time (Appadurai 1986). As I demonstrated in my 2019 MA thesis (Davidson 2019), surface collections and sites damaged by erosion can still produce valuable archaeological information; therefore I choose to believe that artifacts do not <\/i>become more rare over time. With those factors in mind, returning to the initial question of why<\/i>, my answer at this stage would be a lack of understanding of both cultural and heritage industry contexts, or of the actual value of artifacts \u2013 in fact, more symbolic or cultural than monetary.<\/p>\n

References:<\/h2>\n

Appadurai, Arjun. 2013. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge University Press. http:\/\/hdl.handle.net\/2027\/heb.32141<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Davidson, Katherine Sarah. 2019. \u201cWasheo Whiskiheggan: Examining the Hudson\u2019s Bay Company Fur Trade Post in Fort Severn, Ontario through Archaeological Analysis and Community Engagement.\u201d University of New Brunswick. https:\/\/unbscholar.lib.unb.ca\/islandora\/object\/unbscholar%3A9804\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Davidson, Katherine, Shawn Graham, and Damien Huffer. 2021. \u201cExploring Taste Formation and Performance in the Illicit Trade of Human Remains on Instagram.\u201d In Crime and Art: Sociological and Criminological Perspectives of Crimes in the Art World, edited by Naomi Oosterman and Donna Yates, 29\u201344. Studies in Art, Heritage, Law and the Market. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/978-3-030-84856-9_3<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Katherine Davidson is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Many, many thanks to Tina Nichol for the conversation which led to this blog topic. I have been wrapping up my doctoral fieldwork over the last few months, where I am exploring the meaning that understudied collections have for First Nations and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[62,64,66,65,67],"yoast_head":"\nThe \u201cCollector Psychology\u201d - X-Lab<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Katherine Davidson is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. 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