Can I tell my story through my possessions?

The different roles of possessions in globally mobile lives. Can you share your perspective?

Hi everyone. Like Gabriela, I am also studying the life of globally mobile people, people who have lived in many different places. But I am looking at it from a different angle. I am interested in the connection that you have with your possessions.

I have interviewed many people so far, and some tell me they have become less attached to objects and others tell me they have become more attached to objects. Some say they use their possession to link to their homelands (whatever that is) and others say they use objects to create a collage of memory and places they have visited. Others have become so mobile that they do not have many possessions anymore and they prefer to rent everything. Some are attached to specific possessions. What type are you?

I have presented my research at some different places. The audience seems really interested but sometimes they have a hard time to grasp what is it like to keep moving all the time. They keep telling me that they would like to SEE people’s possessions or to SEE the lack of them. They need to see pictures of living rooms or bedroom that can demonstrate these possessions (or the lack of them).

Thus, I would like to ask the help of the Internations community with these pictures. It is actually a fun kind of game. If you look around your living room and your bedroom, and if you think of possessions you like a lot, possessions you don’t like at all, assemblage of possessions, or simply the lack of them, would you be able to send me photos of that? How would you represent in image the role of (some) possessions in your life? Or maybe you want to send a picture of your empty living room, to reinforce you lack of attachment (if that is the case). Please send a short sentence explaining what you are trying to show with the picture so there is not possibility of interpretations that differ from your original intent.

I appreciate if you could help me with that. It is very hard to find a large amount of globally mobile people and even harder to ask them to cooperate to take pictures of their own living room or bedroom. I will not be judging what you have or what you don’t have, or how messy your house might be. I am more interested in having a pictorial representation of how you see the role of things in your life and how they help you manage/cope with being globally mobile. It does not have to be high quality and it can even be taken with any smartphone or simple camera. Writing a sentence to accompany each photo will help me understand what you are trying to show with the picture.

Please send the picture (or many pictures – if you like the game) to Protected content .

I can guarantee that any picture that is eventually used in the research will be anonymous and not associated at all with your names or identities.

Believe me, your help will be invaluable.

Also, if you have an interesting story about possessions in your mobile life, please reply to this posting. We can even do a follow-up interview if the story is really long. I would be delighted to hear more.

Thank you! I hope to be able to count with your cooperation.