Scarred objects and time marks as memory anchors: The significance of scuffs and stains in organisational life

Abstract

This article lays the workplace under the microscope to examine how scuffs on floors and battered corners on desks – things we define as ‘scarred objects’ – become material autobiographical archives and are made into memory anchors by workers. We explore how these scarred objects, construed as insignificant by some, become integral to workers’ sense of memory and continuity. These scarred objects become time marks (Walsh, 1992) which provide a sense of embeddedness in an otherwise flexible, transient working world. We draw on material culture and sociological literatures, and the work of Burnett and Holmes (2001), to make sense of scarred objects in terms of their significance to workers as well as their construal of work and relationship to organisation mediated through memory. This article is based on empirical, visual data gathered from a 9-month study involving 43 hairdressers working in hair salons. We offer three contributions: first, we develop a new area of material studies, at a micro-level, that extends our understanding of objects in the workplace; second, we demonstrate how scarred objects anchor workers’ sense of memory; and third, we show the importance of scarred objects in the context of greater flexibility and liquidity in contemporary work.