Compartment comportment
The bag has a very large number of compartments, big and small, internal and external. Not all compartments get used, though an open ‘pouch-like’ compartment is very useful to just slip things in and out (water or coke bottle, groceries bought while underway). The two main compartments are the ones mostly used: one for papers or the laptop, and the other for everything else. There isn’t really a system to the use of the other compartments, which sometimes leads to scrabbling about. The bag is for her personal use only, and doesn’t get used or accessed by others, though her partner has borrowed it on a few occasions. The bag has only private things in it, nothing that would be of use to anyone else.
Private, personal and sentimental
Dina doesn’t really carry personal grooming items, like make-up or hair brushes. She does at times carry some medicine and related technologies (visible on the picture).
A few items in the bag are of sentimental value. Mostly, these are inside Dina’s agenda: pasted photos, notes about meetings or events, small bits of paper. Notably, Dina showed little torn ads she had been collecting in the run up to moving to the Netherlands. These ads contain information about people looking for accommodation-people with whom Dina would have been in touch in the run up to subletting her apartment in Aarhus. This is a symbolic tie to the other place that is home for her, and the ads are a reminder of the preparations for departure but also of the need to care for what remains there. Dina’s agenda forms part of a series, since she systematically buys similar models every year and keeps old agendas. Another personal item that is in the bag is a delicate silver bracelet she received from her partner. It is somewhat more often in the bag since another visitor has joined Dina in her office. Dina takes off the bracelet because it is noisy when she is working at a keyboard-the bag keeps it safe and close to her.
VKS Ethnography 