Affect as effectuation. The enlargement of Viking Age button-on-bow brooches in eastern Middle Sweden.

The research project focusses on button-on-bow brooches from eastern Middle Sweden, that change their affectual qualities during the formative transition from the Late Germanic Iron Age to the Viking Age. Specifically, the brooches recovered from the Viking Age may be significantly enlarged, compared to their Vendel period predecessors. At the same time, the actual number of button-on-bow brooches decreased in the area during the Viking Age, after which the phenomenon disappeared or went out of production or fashion. During the Viking Age, the button-on-bow brooch thus changed its relation to its previous self or selves (see also Bogost 2012), and of course also humans and non-human entities. In the paper I discuss how a recognition of affect in our studies of material culture, here specifically button-on-bow brooches, can be a useful tool to unravel and explore (changing) power relations in different domains of society on a variety of levels, thus of specific relevance in transitional periods, such as that from the Late Germanic Iron Age to the Viking Age.