From tables and talk to teaching table-talk

Do you ever wonder how we account for our abilities in remembering? What is the place of rememberings in our dis-assembling of the social?

One of Latour’s core principles is his emphasis on objects and on unravelling “things” more completely so that we make fewer shortcuts into meaning without properly addressing the origins of these meanings – as they are present and mediated in objects primarily. I am thinking now about memories, and about how rememberings or memories become objects in my current sociality.

I am now very attached to small round café tables – I associate these tables with intimate interpersonal events of meeting, talking, getting to know friends and closer friends – I find such small round tables with their cast iron legs and laminate tops and matching wrought-iron chairs everywhere. I see them even when I don’t see them. – I transpose and transform similar tables and chairs at my neighbourhood fair trade coffee bars – into these cast-iron tables. I hear conversations that have occurred, I remember jokes and stories, I see hands gesturing, cigarettes waving, and waiters and waitresses delivering the props for these dramas. I remember being transformed from one way of thinking to another, from one language to another. I can trace lines of connection between my earliest experiences as an actor (and woman, always a woman ;-) at such a table and my present-day search for a suitable representative table that can be installed in my new office. I want to create movement in my world as a new teacher through this relationship. What’s in a table you ask? Nothing really. But from this Latourian perspective, a small round table that is explicitly reminiscent of a European (really a French) café is replete with memory and meanings that conjure my social self, and that confer a certain affective structure. I can speak and act differently if I am able to conjure this memory of this table set up an outdoor café.

What’s in a memory that contributes to my sociality? Do memories fit the Latourian definition of matters of fact or matters of concern? Are memories absorbed into my personal theories of action? And of course, is a memory really a veritable object in this way, or is it something else?

I know that tomorrow I will go looking for that particular place, and space and even if I don’t find it, I will find its representation in another place and space and I will remember and I will be transformed again. Such is the power of associations.

Closed ... for vacation! Come back in a month.

Café Bern in the Nieuw markt in oldest Amsterdam is a hole-in-the-wall restaurant success story - where the menu hasn't changed in at least 25 years. And where reservations and lineups any night of the week are virtually certain. In fact the only thing that's changed is the smoking by-law that pushed people outside for their before and after dinner smokes (cigarettes that is!). This is a restaurant designed for sociality - all the dishes are fondus - meat and cheese with decent salads. I've eaten there on my own and with others - and I always want to return - the closest I've found to comfort food in Amsterdam. Even when eating alone, you're placed at a table with other strangers and conversations inevitably ensue! I was there again last Friday and enjoyed the food and company and felt like I was once again properly initiated into the city's local (and selected tourist) culture. Tonight as I walked by, then, I was surprised and entertained to see the place closed up tight with a hand-made sign on the door that says "VAKANTIE na 17 augustus WEER OPEN";-) Everybody needs a holiday - and here in Amsterdam in the heart of outdoor cafes and all-night parties - the staff of Cafe Bern are 'gone fishing'. I still have more to learn.

Friday night at the OBA - 2 years later

I am sitting at an internet station in the OBA - Amsterdam's still newish central public library, which opened in June 2007. I happened to be here for 3 weeks during that summer, and I was a regular at the OBA where I would come each day to sit at a computer and work on a few chapters of my thesis. During those weeks I developed quite an attachment to this library. It's big, beautiful and stylish in Dutch architecture kinds of ways (promotional video here). It's situated away from the central city, closer to the train station and more of the tourist routes rather than the local pedestrian / bicycle routes. Big buildings need big spaces and there aren't many available for this size, in this city's centre.

When this library opened it was designed and billed as a major cultural/tourist space in addition to providing the 'standard' library services. I had many observations at the time and was generally impressed and envious all round. OBA seemed to be library designed for people to come and be for shorter or longer visits - it has many comfortable areas for patrons to read, sit, reflect, talk, meet, eat, compute, and on.

Here I am 2 years later and I want to note some of the changes I see based only on my 2 visits this week. Although I also know that no two communties are ever alike I think there still may be lessons in organizing worth recording. One of the small opportunities for sociality the OBA offers is just inside the front door - an upright piano - I have been tickled each time I've seen or heard the piano start while I'm here. It's available for any patron, any time. Today there are now 2 benches at the piano and a sign about how to use it - the need for a policy, for user guidelines was obviously needed for some reason - leading me to wonder if eventually any places where serendipity and library users meet - institutional policies will finally always be needed. Why is this?

Tonight the library is pretty quiet - people working individual at tables, computers, reading in chairs. A bit too quiet for my liking. So when I heard people talking over at the self-checkout and return bins, I hung around to watch. There is a bank of 4 self-checkout/return machines located along a transparent wall which surrounds the state-of-the art sorting technology - a room sized conveyor belt with bins and a lone person sitting at a terminal. A middle-aged couple was standing at the machine; the woman was depositing her dvds into the return slot, one at a time. Clearly she wasn't quite sure if the machine was "receiving" her returns because she kept leaning down and talking into the slot - if I was guessing, it would be something like "is it ok, did you get it?" that she was repeating (in Dutch) after each deposit. Meanwhile, the lone staff member on the other side of the wall did not even look up and kept working at his computer. And the other staff member across the aisle at the holds desk, also didn't even lift her gaze at this person-object conversation. Her husband seemed to be trying to assure her that it was ok as he smiled and encouraged her to continue with the returns. Eventually they completed their returns and headed upstairs for more films.

It struck me as odd (and funny too) however, that here in this beautiful space with loads of room and opportunity for distributed conversation, the only talking to be heard was a patron speaking rather loudly into a thin slot where a very large piece of very efficient library technology is housed. Certainly a candidate for the next "Funniest Public Library Videos" screenings ;-) And no staff member acknowledged or even responded - maybe it happens all the time and they are used to this behaviour. Nevertheless, it's distinctly anti-social in my view - what do you think?

A couple of other changes noted - where there were piles and piles of bicycles chained and organized outside the front door of the library, there is now an outdoor cafe and a security guard to ensure that all bicycles are parked 'legally' in the underground lot. Libraries and restaurants as new partnerships?

At the reference desk, the staff now sit "outside" their attractive but closed pods or desks, much more visible to one and all. And the reference staff member I chatted with briefly noted a little apologetically that the majority of their visitors at the library were still tourists.

These are just a few random thoughts - the clock is ringing and it's time to go - I still love it - I still feel so at home here, but oddly, it's just a little bit more quiet than I expected or than I would prefer. Meanwhile, I'm wishing I could still play the piano well enough to go over there and try it out!

Not rocket science

That objects are the raison d'être of our sociality is on one hand not rocket science -- rocket science being my container for all the difficult 'answers' that explain the universe, but that remain mysterious, puzzling, and perpetually beyond my reach. If I sound a little obsessive on this topic, well I am and there will be more. Because it occurs to me again (and again) - that for librarians, the transformative power and action of objects is ... just ... well ... no big news. Librarians and library patrons and library collections of 'objects' go together like hands and a pair of gloves, like sommeliers, wine and wine glasses, like viewers, paintings and walls, like subjects, light and photographs, for example. The point is that when we speak of the power of objects, it's pretty easy to understand how objects themselves change us, act on us, socialize us, when those objects push any one of our senses into being differently. Ask someone about their favourite songs, recipes, food, drink, books, artists, paintings, photographs, piece of nature and you will hear them talk about how any one or more of their senses is set off, or is moved and changed. Questions then abound about whether the change is made durable by these objects, whether the change "sticks." Marketeers are desperate for such changes and we are inundated with exposure to their objects.

But in part because I am a librarian, I am pre-disposed to sorting - that is, I often want to sort things into categories - there are many non-librarians who also share this inclination. And everyday we as individuals are being asked to 'sort' more and more of our objects into categories for various purposes (garbage quickly springs to mind). So what about all those hunks of plastic, or inanimate objects that surround us - do these objects also transform you and me? I was trolling through used furniture and 2nd hand treasure stores this weekend and objects abound. When do such objects become "matters of concern that modify a state of affairs by making a difference" (Latour, 2005). When do these treasures move me in durable ways? And how will I know? Objects that 'speak' to me are easier to understand as creatures socializing me - but sometimes a desk is just a desk and a chair just a chair.

I still think the Subject-Object-Subject arrangement is how I and others are able to 'BE in the world' - and what Latour calls for is more prominence for these objects as veritable 'actors'. I'm still waiting for the next chapter in rocket science when I hear that our latest rocket scientists have discovered a new category of objects that reflect, think, feel, cry, gasp in pain, and laugh uncontrollably without provocation or assistance.

Objects as actors

I have been re-reading Latour’s Re-assembling the social – an extended discussion of actor-network theory (ANT) and have been thinking much more about the role of objects. According to Latour, human relations are only ever weak ties, made stronger and made ‘social’ by the non-human objects which are often associated with these human interactions. More than symbolic, and more than being carriers of meaning, objects are the actors where sociality – in its dynamic, transformative, motion-full – action takes place. In my life, objects have always had a lot of significance – but more as symbols than as the dynamic link itself. For Latour, objects provide a durability to sociality that humans cannot and he argues this persuasively, even though I have intuitively rejected this view.

Durability literally means a hardness, a resistance to change, and the concept also suggests the idea of structure (to me). So, how do objects ‘work’ as social actors? Parent-child, lovers, friends, or colleagues. ANT tells us to dis-assemble these relationships, focussing much more on the action and movement that the objects play. I look at my kids and understand that all the clutter of toys, furniture, clothes, equipment, living paraphernalia are actors in our family stories. Both my kids had favoured blankets – which I used to soothe them, which in fact, did soothe them as babies. The computers, television, dvd and music collections in our house. All of these ‘objects’ have in some ways enacted bonds, connections, events, moments, sustaining our relationship. An obvious question is would we not have these bonds without these objects? Well, yes, in a biological way, but no, also in a social way. And even at that biological level, we are connected by birth, by objects, people, medical professionals, hospitals, etc., to get us into the world together. These objects play large roles (i.e., are major actors) in the drama of our lives together.

Ok, so let’s take the relationship of lovers. As I was thinking about this kind of social tie and objects, a large grin spread across my face. Think of all of the movies or television shows you’ve seen where a partner is fighting with the other (often the woman fighting with her man) and the “stuff” begins to be thrown out windows onto the street or doorstep –I see all kinds of ordinary and special clothes, shoes, sports equipment, keys, photos, etc. in a pile. Are the objects themselves ‘just’ the signs or symbols of the relationship? No, in a way, these objects make the relationship alive and durable across time. If we take the objects away, that’s when we are on more precarious ground – because what keeps lovers together in a social relationship afterall?

In a couple of my relationships that have ended, I have also instinctively packaged up the objects because they ‘speak’ too loudly still of the relationship – in better or worse moments. They remind, they act, they re-tell, they keep alive, relationships which I as the human actor, was moving to end. I have a very large box of correspondence from those closest to me over the years – in a box in the basement. The fact that these objects are still here, speaks to their potency as traces of durability of the social. Well, maybe this is too obvious, you could say. It is and it isn’t. When we analyse any social interactions, I don’ t think we pay enough attention to how the objects ‘act’. I’m not quite ready to insist that objects are independent actors in my life, but I can see how they make my relationships ‘happen’ (or not) so often.

Where I’m left now is wondering – in some post-sci-fi world where there are NO OBJECTS around us – where we are only our human selves, what happens? Does Star Trek have an episode about this vision in the future? Even Adam and Eve had a garden and an apple!