A stone that feels right in the hand

Tactile memory, the abduction of agency and presence of the past

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2391101
AutoresJohn Harries (0000-0001-7359-8419, The University of Edinburgh, UK, autor de correspondencia)
Año2017
Volumen22
Número1
Páginas110-130
Fecha de publicación2017-03-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Material Culture (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1359-1835 • E-ISSN: 1460-3586
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1359183516679187
OpenAlexW2556569853
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas22
Referencias citadas54

This article is a theoretical and ethnographic exploration of the possibility of 'touching the past'. Drawing on fieldwork from Newfoundland, Canada, and in conversation with Gell's Art and Agency (1998), it focuses on the process of abduction whereby, in their discovery and handling, pieces of stone become artefacts that index the presence of an absent other. It is argued that through this tactile process of becoming an artefactual index, the distinction between past and present is momentarily dissolved, enfolded into the fit between stone and hand, giving rise to the possibility of historical sensation and the feeling of pastness

Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy · Art · Conversation · Epistemology · Ethnography · Feeling · Index (typography · Process (computing · Sociology · Visual arts · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Communication · Computer Science · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology