"Man måste lära sig reglerna för att kunna bryta mot dem"

Hur diskurser kan förstärka och naturliggöras av icke samspelande artefakter

Abstract

This article focuses on artifacts and how they can be used to legitimate social positions and maintain hegemonic discourses. For about two months I was practicing in a garage outside Umeå and here I studied the use of artifacts and how these materialities worked as an expression for power. Using things for other purposes that they were meant for, and hereby changing their significance, shows how power is operating, and paradoxically that action can be seen as legitimating positions and preserve hierarchies. Studying and participating in the daily work, I also gained a better understanding of my own position and the way I used tools. Several times I was told how to handle wrenches, pair of tongs, nuts and machines, these reprimands encouraged a certain way of working. At the same time, other ways of handling the tools were excluded. Pontus, one of the machinists had also changed the function of some tools. This innovative action shows how significances never is absolute, materialities are subject for constant changes. My wish with this article is to illuminate how this process is taking place.