Personal Artifacts and Nonverbal Identification: A Case Study

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What is it that makes us similar or dissimilar to others? There are many aspects of similarity, but we can classify them into two separate classes: permanent, that is, they are either something biological and/or quite difficult to change once they have assigned a “class,” or changeable. For instance, tattoos are permanent unless you want to go through a long and often painful process of “erasing” them. Even then, there may be scars that require additional surgical efforts to eliminate them. Of course, there are other permanent biological elements, such as skin color, height, and biological sex (male/female, not gendered). Again, there may be ways to change biological similarity, but they involve invasive surgeries and often are unavailable to the average individual. Similarity or dissimilarity, however, can be used as a form of group identity through the use of nonverbal communication such as physical appearance and artifacts (Moore et al., 2014). Although seemingly dissimilar, the two are actually more similar than dissimilar. As we will see, both have similar purposes— to indicate inclusion/exclusion from others. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the contemporary strategic purposes and use of physical appearance and artifacts, especially as impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.