What is Genealogy?

During this seminar we learnt about the principles of genealogy and what it actually means. Genealogy is almost like a family tree, but for ideas and theories and how they have developed. The principles of genealogy are as follows:

• Creative formation of histories from particular perspectives
• Multiplicitous and often contradictory
• They are never about declaring absolute origins 
• Genealogies are resident - they are among many

In order to create a genealogy you must first determine the topic or condition, for instance a person, and then trace the emergence, so for a person you would look at the family tree and then go from there.

In the seminar we did an activity which meant that we had to project our own emergence from a list of different things which could happen in the near future. We got into small groups and our group chose to do 'Tinted sunglasses are fashionable'. We came up with a range of emergences, including some very deep comments such as 'people wouldn't see the world the same because they are wearing these glasses' and 'people could answer the phone which would make them even lazier than they currently are'. There is a picture below of all the emergences which we created.