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Tell me about the Heritage Futures programme that you are involved with.
It is based around the idea that the things that will be heritage in the future are being made right now. My focus as a cultural anthropologist is on what鈥檚 going to be around later to get defined as the cultural history of the West. How are we creating and curating the archive of the future?

One big challenge is to know what to save when there are so many things from which to choose. I think we urgently need get a handle on what is sometimes called post-scarcity culture, but which I prefer to call the prolific present.

Why is this 鈥減rolific present鈥� such a problem?
Mass production and consumption has generated a runaway train effect, which threatens to one day overwhelm us. People in Western countries now typically own more than 2000 objects each. This explosion of consumer goods, and virtually limitless potential for digital storage, is creating big dilemmas over what to save for the future, and how we go about it. I鈥檓 interested at the household level and also in museums that collect from the recent past and from today 鈥� especially social history museums, which have to deal with this profusion.

Why are we so obsessed with material objects that are not essential for our day-to-day lives?
This is a deep issue about how people form identities. A modern way in which we set ourselves apart and express who we are is with our choices about what we buy and what these objects say about us.

Do all these possessions make us happier?
It鈥檚 extraordinary, if you search 鈥渄eclutter鈥� online, there鈥檚 so much advice about how to get rid of stuff. And often it鈥檚 quite moralised: there鈥檚 this idea that you can improve yourself by getting rid of things, that you can rescue yourself from a sort of morass. But we find it hard to let go of things. For example, the number of self-storage units has really taken off in the UK this century, though the US is in a league of its own 鈥� 1 in 10 households there buy additional storage. Are they just putting this extra stuff out of sight so they don鈥檛 have to make a decision?

It can feel hard to throw things out鈥�
Absolutely, and at the extreme there鈥檚 the complete inability to dispose of stuff, revealed by a whole load of television programmes dedicated to so-called 鈥渆xtreme hoarders鈥�. We鈥檙e fascinated by such people because we think, 鈥淎h, that鈥檚 what I might become if I鈥檓 not careful鈥�. It makes us question who are we and where we want to be on this spectrum. It鈥檚 a sign of the prolific present that in 2013 , medicalised disorder in the US psychiatry diagnostic manual, DSM-5.

How is the prolific present affecting museums?
Museums that deal with social history are having huge problems. They face this question: do we need an example of all the different cups or laptops that come out, or can we just take one brand and one model. How do we choose? York Castle Museum is a case in point. Its social history collections contain about 30,000 items, and it had to temporarily halt collecting in order to review its policy.

Many museums are swamped with a backlog of uncatalogued stuff. This problem has been exacerbated by the increasing 鈥渄emocratisation of the past鈥� 鈥� the idea that museums should try to represent as many levels of society as possible. But where do we draw the line? If museums stop collecting, as some are now doing because of costs and because they have run out of storage space, they may turn into museums only of the more distant past. So, despite the profusion, there will actually be less collected to represent this period of our history for the future.

How can we judge what our descendants will find important?
That鈥檚 a tough question. One response is that we should try to keep everything, because we can鈥檛 know in advance. Go in that direction and it鈥檚 a bottomless pit. Our descendants won鈥檛 have endless time to sift through everything we鈥檝e kept. And we would do them a disservice if we tried to keep everything, because the decisions about what we choose to preserve say a lot about our culture. For example, if we look at excavations of ancient burial sites, what鈥檚 interesting to us today is the objects that people tried to take with them into the afterlife.

鈥淥ur descendants won鈥檛 have endless time to sift through everything we鈥檝e kept鈥�

What can we learn about the Ancient Egyptians from the objects they chose to keep?
In some periods in Ancient Egypt 鈥� including that of Tutankhamen 鈥� people probably saw the afterlife as quite dangerous, as they took weapons, but also as not without social opportunities because they took cosmetics and musical instruments. And that shows us too that they believed they would continue to have physical form in the next life.

What cultural differences have you seen in the objects chosen to preserve for the future?
There are cultures in which decay and even destruction are seen as important for releasing creative energy for future generations. Traditionally among Igbo people in West Africa, for example, it was regarded as necessary to let art works decay so that new ones could come into being. And in various cultures there鈥檚 the idea that things associated with people who have died should be destroyed in order to ensure their spirits don鈥檛 come back and haunt the present. Certain Native American groups would burn down the home of the deceased to stop their ghost from coming back.

How do we decide what鈥檚 personally important?
I think that, a lot of the time, the stuff we acquire is a matter of the moment and people aren鈥檛 strategising carefully about the future. But I think personal crunch points come, like when you move house, as I currently am. Suddenly, you鈥檝e got to think about what really matters. The ridiculous thing I鈥檓 agonising over at the moment is a birdcage. It is a purely decorative thing that my parents owned before giving it to me. It has been in every house that we鈥檝e lived in and it actually annoys me because it鈥檚 large, awkward and attracts dust 鈥� but it would feel destructive to get rid of it now. I feel like it has earned its keep by having managed to hang around so long!

Is there anything you absolutely must keep?
I have an absurd number of books and yet I absolutely assume that I will keep them. I talked to one of my daughters about this. She鈥檚 22, but she took it for granted that books should be kept. In the age of digital readers, I was pleasantly surprised by that.

(Image: Kai Muller)

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淲hat are the icons of the prolific present?鈥�