ABSTRACT
What is striking in equal measure, reaching towards the end this volume, are the diversity and the coherence of its contributions. The ‘fieldworks' or ‘terrains' explored by the authors reach far and wide, both geographically and thematically. Besides France (and Switzerland), they range from North and Sub-Saharan Africa to the Indian sub-continent and the islands of the Far East, and from the lingering odours surrounding municipal divers and waste managers to the rarefied atmosphere of Parisian museums, from the transmission of skills among Swiss watchmakers to the swapping of shirts among suburban teenagers. Inbetween we encounter, weavers of spirited fabrics, wearers of charismatic silks, dressers of altar deities and upholders of royal powers. In a broad spectrum spanning from behaviourism to phenomenology, the contributions we have just read, and more generally the Matière à Penser (MaP) approach they exemplify, are all situated far closer to the latter pole. To be sure, a range of ‘objective’ measures are at hand, epistemologically and methodologically speaking, including field enquiries, participant observation, pseudonymised interviews and apprenticeship immersion, as variously attested in the chapters by Céline Rosselin-Bareille, Marie-Pierre Julien, Urmila Mohan, Hervé Munz or Geoffrey Gowlland. Granted that, these are quite manifestly subjects – and more specifically subjects-in-becoming, acting, with and on their bodies, with and on things – that occupy here pride of place.
