The happy story of a “thingist”

Résumé

This essay is an ethnographic analysis of the life history of a middle-aged man living in a small town in southern Portugal during the “austerity” crisis. Pedro’s initial engagement with caring for older persons eventually led him to a fascination with “things”, to such an extent that his friends jokingly call him a coisista (a ‘thingist’). His life story, as that of someone who has become a specialist in dealing with what happens to domestic objects when households break down, can help us throw light on the complexities of the process of objectification. Taking recourse to a long tradition of phenomenological analyses, the essay focuses on the mysterious relation between things and objects attempting to relate it to contemporary developments in sociocultural anthropology of the notions of personhood, company, and transcendence.