Abstract
This essay responds to Wacquant’s call for a “Carnal Sociology”—an approach best realized through a method Wacquant calls “enactive ethnography.” In this essay, I explore the ways in which certain aspects of Wacquant’s carnal sociology—specifically the sentient, the sedimented and the situated—can enhance our understanding of cognition and meaning-making. I reference an ongoing research project on the deciphering of olfactory messages to make my case.
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Notes
This research is in the preliminary stages. But some exploratory findings can be found in Cerulo (2015).
The sales materials distributed with each perfume describe the manufacturers desired customer base; materials also suggest sales “pitches” that clerks might use to lure customers toward a purchase.
It is worth noting that I gathered my data via focus group interviews. Wacquant describes “enactive ethnography” as the preferred method for gathering data on the sentient, sedimented and situated aspects of experience. He argues that enactive ethnography allows the researcher “to master in the first person, intus et in cute, the prediscursive schemata that make up the competent, diligent, and appetent member of the universe under examination.” I argue that the triangular approach of analyzing or deconstruicting the olfactory object, smelling the scents with study participants, and dialoging about the meanings participants attribute to a fragrance proves equally illuminating in studying the deciphering of olfactory meaning.
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Cerulo, K.A. The Embodied Mind: Building on Wacquant’s Carnal Sociology. Qual Sociol 38, 33–38 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-014-9296-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-014-9296-6