{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,8]],"date-time":"2025-10-08T22:21:31Z","timestamp":1759962091153,"version":"3.41.2"},"reference-count":44,"publisher":"Emerald","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,17]],"date-time":"2020-02-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1581897600000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/site-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["JD"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,17]]},"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Purpose<\/jats:title><jats:p>The purpose of this paper is to report the results of an ethnographic study that used object biography with an archival collection of police surveillance files, the Police Historical\/Archival Investigative Files, housed at the City of Portland Archives &amp; Records Center in Portland, Oregon.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Design\/methodology\/approach<\/jats:title><jats:p>Document analysis, participant observation, semistructured interviews, and object biography were conducted over four years, from 2013 to 2017.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Findings<\/jats:title><jats:p>Using object biography with the Police Historical\/Archival Investigative Files uncovered numerous personal and public relationships that developed between people and this collection over several decades as well as how these records acquired, constructed, and changed meanings over time and space.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title><jats:p>This paper argues that the biography of objects is a useful way for studying the relationships records form, the values people assign to them, and how people and records mutually inform and transform one another in shifting contexts of social lives. Recognizing records as having social histories and applying object biography to them contributes to and grows the greater biography and genealogy of the record and the archive\u2014a genealogy important not only for discovering something about the lives of those who create, encounter, steward, and use records and archives but about our shared human experience.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/jd-06-2019-0111","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,18]],"date-time":"2020-02-18T03:30:45Z","timestamp":1581996645000},"page":"753-767","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["A collection and its many relations and contexts"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"76","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7716-0801","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Kathy","family":"Carbone","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref001","first-page":"3","article-title":"Introduction: commodities and the politics of value","volume-title":"The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective","year":"1986"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref002","first-page":"235","article-title":"Archives, life cycles, and death wishes: a helical model of record formation","volume":"61","year":"2006","journal-title":"Archivaria"},{"first-page":"223","article-title":"Document theory: an introduction","year":"2015","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref003"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref045","first-page":"27","article-title":"Artists in the archive: an exploratory study of the artist-in-residence program at the City of Portland Archives & Records Center","volume":"79","year":"2015","journal-title":"Archivaria"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"100","DOI":"10.1080\/23257962.2016.1260446","article-title":"Artists and records: moving history and memory","volume":"38","year":"2017","journal-title":"Archives and Records"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref005","first-page":"7","article-title":"Affecting relations: introducing affect theory to archival discourse","volume":"16","year":"2015","journal-title":"Archival Science"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref006","first-page":"11","article-title":"Fruitbox \/ Toolbox: biography and objects","volume":"IX","year":"2001","journal-title":"Auto\/Biography"},{"volume-title":"Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads and Police Repression in Urban America","year":"1990","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref042"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"210","DOI":"10.1080\/00438243.2016.1195770","article-title":"The \u2018very stillness of things': object biographies of sailcloth and fishing net from the Point Pearce Aboriginal Mission (Burgiyana) colonial archive, South Australia","volume":"48","year":"2016","journal-title":"World Archaeology"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"362","DOI":"10.1080\/09647775.2019.1612270","article-title":"Using object biographies to understand the curation crisis: lessons learned from the museum life of an archaeological collection","volume":"34","year":"2019","journal-title":"Museum Management and Curatorship"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"165","DOI":"10.1007\/s10502-008-9073-y","article-title":"Documentary ethics, ontology, and politics","volume":"8","year":"2008","journal-title":"Archival Science"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref010","first-page":"27","article-title":"Multiplicity, materiality, and autonomous agency of documentation","volume-title":"A Document (Re)Turn: Contributions for a Research Field in Transition","year":"2007"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref011","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"225","DOI":"10.1080\/00438243.1999.9980443","article-title":"Riders on the storm: rock art in the Atacama Desert (Northern Chile)","volume":"31","year":"1999","journal-title":"World Archaeology"},{"volume-title":"Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory","year":"1998","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref012"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref013","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"249","DOI":"10.1007\/s10502-014-9231-3","article-title":"Moving past: probing the agency and affect of recordkeeping in individual and community lives in post-conflict Croatia","volume":"14","year":"2014","journal-title":"Archival Science"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref014","first-page":"53","article-title":"Records and their imaginaries: imagining the impossible, making possible the imagined","volume":"16","year":"2015","journal-title":"Archival Science"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref015","first-page":"1","article-title":"For every document, a person: a co-created view of documents","volume-title":"Proceedings from the Document Academy","year":"2016"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref016","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1114","DOI":"10.1108\/JD-01-2016-0007","article-title":"Document phenomenology: a framework for holistic analysis","volume":"72","year":"2016","journal-title":"Journal of Documentation"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref017","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"169","DOI":"10.1080\/00438243.1999.9980439","article-title":"The cultural biography of objects","volume":"31","year":"1999","journal-title":"World Archaeology"},{"volume-title":"Biographical Objects: How Things Tell the Stories of Peoples' Lives","year":"1998","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref018"},{"volume-title":"Art, Archives, Activism: Artist Talk & Performance","year":"2015","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref019"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref020","first-page":"1","article-title":"From object to mediator: the agency of documents","volume-title":"Proceedings from the Document Academy","year":"2016"},{"volume-title":"The Secret Watchers: How the Police Bureau Spied for Decades on the People of Portland","year":"2002","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref021"},{"volume-title":"In Case You Were Wondering\u2026Intelligence Gathering Was More Than A One-Person Operation","year":"2002","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref022"},{"volume-title":"It Should Be Noted: Police Biases Led To Surveillance, Infiltration, Even Tampering With People's Livelihoods","year":"2002","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref023"},{"volume-title":"Watcher Files Find New Home","year":"2004","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref024"},{"volume-title":"The Wild, The Weird And The Plain Silly","year":"2002","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref025"},{"issue":"4","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref026","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"540","DOI":"10.1080\/00438240903345530","article-title":"Reinvigorating object biography: reproducing the drama of object lives","volume":"41","year":"2009","journal-title":"World Archaeology"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref027","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"131","DOI":"10.1007\/BF02435644","article-title":"Tacit narratives: the meanings of archives","volume":"1","year":"2001","journal-title":"Archival Science"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref028","first-page":"64","article-title":"The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process","volume-title":"The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective","year":"1986"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref029","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"544","DOI":"10.1108\/JD-01-2013-0013","article-title":"Experiencing documents","volume":"70","year":"2014","journal-title":"Journal of Documentation"},{"volume-title":"Androgynous Objects: String Bags and Gender in Central New Guinea","year":"1991","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref030"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref031","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"333","DOI":"10.1007\/BF02438901","article-title":"Placing records continuum theory and practice","volume":"1","year":"2001","journal-title":"Archival Science"},{"volume-title":"The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI","year":"2014","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref032"},{"edition":"2nd ed.","volume-title":"The Portland Red Guide","year":"2011","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref033"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref034","first-page":"111","article-title":"Artefact biography as an approach to material culture: Irish gravestones as a material form of genealogy","volume":"12\/13","year":"2003","journal-title":"The Journal of Irish Archaeology"},{"volume-title":"Biography: Fiction, Fact and Form","year":"1984","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref035"},{"volume-title":"Red Rose School, Police Historical\/Investigative Files","year":"1984","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref043"},{"volume-title":"Specific Information Not to Be Collected or Maintained","year":"1981","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref036"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref037","first-page":"9","article-title":"The aesthetics of affect: thinking art beyond representation","volume-title":"Visual Culture as Objects and Affects","year":"2013"},{"key":"key2020042910394306400_ref038","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6","DOI":"10.1179\/1936981612Z.0000000001","article-title":"Silent witness: tracing narratives of empire through objects and archives in the West African collections at the Manchester Museum","volume":"6","year":"2013","journal-title":"Museum History Journal"},{"volume-title":"Informant Names Deleted from Police Spying Files","year":"2006","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref039"},{"issue":"1","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref040","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6","DOI":"10.5403\/oregonhistq.114.1.0006","article-title":"Black and blue: police-community relations in Portland's Albina District, 1964-1985","volume":"114","year":"2013","journal-title":"Oregon Historical Quarterly"},{"volume-title":"Our Enemies in Blue","year":"2004","key":"key2020042910394306400_ref041"}],"container-title":["Journal of Documentation"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/content\/doi\/10.1108\/JD-06-2019-0111\/full\/xml","content-type":"application\/xml","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/content\/doi\/10.1108\/JD-06-2019-0111\/full\/html","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,24]],"date-time":"2025-07-24T22:34:17Z","timestamp":1753396457000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"http:\/\/www.emerald.com\/jd\/article\/76\/3\/753-767\/195988"}},"subtitle":["Constructing an object biography of the police historical\/archival investigative files"],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,17]]},"references-count":44,"journal-issue":{"issue":"3","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,17]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1108\/JD-06-2019-0111"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1108\/jd-06-2019-0111","relation":{},"ISSN":["0022-0418"],"issn-type":[{"type":"print","value":"0022-0418"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,17]]}}}