Sensory Studies

Abstract: What is the function of this entire material world that we create everyday? Its function is to be described or be experienced in many different ways? If we create a material world to be skilled, why our archaeological practice focuses onobservation and not the experience of objects and sites? As archaeologists, we are used to describe, draw, photograph, read and write. All our scientific practice is purely visual. But what about the other senses? Ethnographic, historical and anthropological studies have shown that sensory perception is a cultural construct, the meanings that individuals attribute to the sensory aspectsare based on sensory models adopted socially. We learn to see, hear and feel. The material culture embodies and expresses the sensorial models of a given society, not only in their production, through the values and sensory skills involved in it, but also in the sensory qualities that objects have once finished. Thus, just given attention to the visual aspect of our practice we would not beincurring an interpretative error? In this symposium we intend to discuss the relationship between material culture, the body and the senses through approaches that are centered on the senses as a whole and not just in vision.