Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on intersections of flows of people and flows of objects. By juxtaposing two case studies, I analyze modes in which objects associated with ‘other cultures’ are involved in creating individual post-nomadic identities.

Paper long abstract:

In systems of global culture industry, diverse material objects flow through private spaces. From the anthropological point of view, the most informative factor is the flow of objects that connote the spatial and cultural distance (called 'exotic'), especially if the trajectory of this object's movement intersects with the life trajectory of an individual whose biography is not bound by this individual to a single place.

Can these mobile systems be used to establish the individual orders of identity that are perceived as stable? If so, then what is the cultural mechanism of production of practices that are involved in it? How, in this case, are the meanings of objects that are typically associated with exoticism re-constructed?

Two case studies will be used for searching for answers to these questions. My research is conducted using the ethnographic method in Warsaw. I selected cases of individuals whose biographies indicate how important the experience of physical and cultural mobility is (repetitive travels and long stays in one place as well as living in different countries). In my research I was focused primarily on objects that (more or less occasionally) are associated with the Orient,

This allows to observe multiple meanings that are formed where biographies of people and biographies of things intersect and examples of modes can be distinguished, in which, on the one hand, the order of identity is merged, and, on the other hand, a version of 'orientality' that defines the object's biography is re-invented.