The ethnographic analysis of households is one of the methods of anthropology. Justus Brinckmann, the founding director of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (MKG), held a liberal view of scientific discipline. It is true that he conducted diligent research in the peasant households of the Vierlande, a region near Hamburg that was significant in terms of cultural history. But he was actually concerned with abducting objects (such as carved wooden chests) from the households in order to incorporate them into the museum collection.
The household research of “Mobile Worlds,” done by Friedemann Neumann, took a less appropriative approach. Neumann was interested in the persistence of cultural forms in postmigrant households. Thus he came across Shirin Begui, who sprayed Persian carpet patterns, mixed with symbols from Hamburg´s punk and squatter scene, directly onto the floor of her apartment by using stencils.