Homes: things and senses

Abstract

This report draws on findings of the ethnographic research I did from February to July 2019 in Pistoia, northern Tuscany. It was an exploration of the material culture, the behaviours and the consumption practices in homes. Three families of three and four members each and two young and single boys were involved in the research. Reflecting on what can be a ‘home’, the attention initially focused on what was inside them. ‘Things’ are surely the staple of the domestic world and must all be considered: from the most ordinary ones to the most unusual. The nature of the relationship between the owner and the item was also taken into account and is very significant to this research. Then, as the data was being gathered, another aspect that came to relevance as an invisible and constant presence was ‘senses’: the mostly unconscious means with which people experience the
domestic sphere. All these areas of the research ended up being strictly connected, as different facets of a prism through which we can observe the same reality: the homemaking process.