Sensate memory: An introduction to the special issue

Abstract

This issue brings together 10 anthropologists who investigate the potential of multimodality and the role of sensing, as situated social practice, in the complex working of memory. Through video, images, texts and sound—and through collage, installations, embroidery, and drawing—we invite the audience of Multimodality & Society to consider: What are some of the complex relationships between memory and the senses? How does multimodality help us approach the study of remembering and forgetting? This introduction frames our work into current debates in multimodal and sensory anthropology, discusses our approaches to memory, and draws some of the common themes that connect our contributions. Collectively, we investigate memory as sensate, emplaced, and affective, and existing in a complex relation with temporality and practices of forgetting. We are particularly interested in the links between multi-sensory approaches and the possibilities offered by multimodality. We argue that the latter can help us think of sensate memory, and vice versa, studying remembering and forgetting as multisensory can demonstrate some of the potential of multimodal scholarship.

Introducing ethnohistorical research to multimodal studies

“…Indeed, multimodal ethnography (cf. Dicks et al, 2006; Moretti, 2021) is now a well-established approach for the study of contemporary multimodal artefacts, particularly in the areas of linguistic landscape studies, geosemiotics, visual sociology and New Literacy Studies (O’Hagan, 2020b), which enables everyday experiences to be disentangled through material texts. It stands to reason, then, that its historical equivalent—ethnohistory—would also offer similar benefits in tracing the narratives behind the semiotic choices of multimodal artefacts and how they signal elements of a person’s lived experience that might otherwise be hidden without primary evidence from the producers themselves.…”

“…This call is in response to ideological critiques around text-oriented multimodal analysis, particularly its insufficient attention to the broader social practices, processes and people involved in the production or reception of texts (Machin, 2016; Hiippala, 2018; Aiello and Parry, 2019). There are now well-established methods, such as multimodal critical discourse analysis (Machin and Mayr, 2012) and multimodal ethnography (Dicks et al, 2006; Moretti, 2021), to address this “tunnel vision” (Ledin and Machin, 2018:25) and consider what visuals achieve for producers, what effects they have on recipients and how this relates to their wider sociocultural context. But what do we do when dealing with historical multimodal texts?…”