Abstract

Taking into account my ethnographic research on contemporary art in Tunisia, I intend to examine some reflections, both theoretical and methodological, on «sense memories» in the fieldwork. I focus on two aspects of my work that might contribute to the debate on the issue of ethnography and the senses: 1) the recent emerging presence of bodies in the public sphere and the consequent need to narrate about their physicality and movements; 2) the specificity of many artistic creations evoking a fragmentary and disorienting reality. I consider how dialogues and interaction between artistic and ethnographic practices might occur, with the aim of narrating/evoking what is inexpressible as well as the uncertainty of reality, or rather both the narrative and sensible aspects. In other words, how can Tunisian artistic creations be the occasion for debating new ethnographic practices experimenting alternative modalities of «ethnographic writing», and new narratives that could be «sensible» to contemporaneity?