Task 1.7 – What’s in my bag? Let me show you.

For this task, I chose a bag whose contents I have carefully curated and refined over the years. It was once my father’s, and held the family’s passports as he corralled us through international travels.

Like many of my parent’s belongings, particularly tupperware, I have somehow managed to unconsciously appropriate it. I too, use it for travel, and over the years have pared down its contents to the bare essentials. As someone who loathes carry-on, I can often get away with bringing just this bag on the plane.

The contents are as follows:

1. The bag itself. An unassuming MEC purse/satchel/cross-body bag. One time my dad forgot it on a plane in Vietnam, and a well-meaning individual took it home to their town several hours away before calling the airline. It was an extremely tense few hours.
2. Kindle.
3. Passport.
4. Super geeky velcro wallet.
5. Multipurpose portable charger.
6. Charging cords.
7. At least seven days worth of medication, in the event that checked luggage goes missing.
8. Pens.
9. Gum. Nothing worse than bad breath on the plane.
10. Mask.
11. Flashlight. Probably the best AAA flashlight I’ve ever used. Never know when you’ll need a flashlight (I have never needed a flashlight on a plane… yet.)
12. Headphones. Wired.

The text technologies in this bag are varied. Some are overtly in-line with the category, others more abstractly so. The contents are very modern, and the literacies they reveal are contemporary and personalized.

The Kindle itself is quite clearly the epitome of text technology present in my bag – a device whose sole purpose is the delivery of digital text. For years, I looked down on e-readers, outraged at the thought that anything dare attempt to replace the experience of a physical book. That was, until I got one as a gift. Now a book needs to be particularly special to justify a physical copy for me.

The perks of the Kindle are numerous: the ability to read late at night without a light, custom font-sizes and line-spacing, a built-in dictionary, access to any book ever written. In my mind, the Kindle perfectly embodies the “technology” in text technology. It takes text as a medium and elevates its delivery. Yes, its tactile experience leaves much to be desired in comparison to a real book, but you sure aren’t fitting the count of Monte Cristo in a purse.

I see the modern passport as a kind of physical/digital interface. Nothing about it is inherently digital or technological, but at every border it is scanned and logged. Every passport is probably a row of data in databases throughout the world. Its contents are inevitably shared digitally between countries, and its security features make it firmly technological. It is also a textual artifact that we may see convert to fully digital at some point in time, though likely not in the near future.

The flashlight is a funny one. Like many people during the Covid-19 lockdowns of 2020, I picked up some new hobbies. For reasons I can’t explain, I got really into flashlights, a surprisingly deep rabbit hole. The world of online flashlight enthusiasts is vast, full of people obsessing over colour temperatures (personally I like a warm 2700k), efficiency, lumens, and candela.

I ended up buying a lot of flashlights. Ultimately, this flashlight being in my bag is the result of my online textual interactions. It was only purchased after reading countless in-depth reviews measuring its performance, rankings of AAA flashlights, and various online discussions.

The contents of this bag are utilitarian, tightly organized, and could be seen as reflecting a highly organized, carefully controlled owner. In contrast, I’m not like that at all. Organization takes a lot of effort for me, and I am more than happy to go with the flow. What the bag and its contents truly reflects is an anxious traveller!

To the eyes of an archaeologist, the bag’s contents could be perplexing. A document of Canadian citizenship very clearly denotes the owner as an individual with ties to a country called Canada. Yet not a single piece of the bags contents originates from that country. The wallet was made in Vietnam, the pens in Japan, and all of the electronics in China.

“Who was this borderless individual?” they might ask.

“Canada and Asia clearly had quite the relationship.” they may astutely observe.

And the Kindle? Why have such a thin, seemingly limited device? With large screens and digital devices with multitudes of features widely available, what advantage does such a basic, black and white display serve? Is it a relic of a post-paper era? Was this individual a luddite – rejecting the advances of modern digital consumption?

This exercise of reflection has revealed the underlying textual and technological threads that exist within the every-day objects I’ve hauled across the world. They say a lot about me in some ways, and reflect me poorly in others.