Sensory Affordances
Whether they are domestic souvenirs, intimate and obsolete objects the individual is fond of, or prestigious elements of the monumental heritage, emblematic of the groups that claim them, or natural places that everyone can commit themselves to protect, the material world mobilizes the senses and affects. Based on various ethnographic surveys the author conducted in France since the 2000s on domestic conservation, emotional legacies and memories of migration that become heritage formations, this article analyzes the way in which individuals mobilize affects to craft a self-portrait. When their affective value appears, epiphanic things are involved in a sensory experience that creates a biographical event. However, grip of everyday things, the affordances and affects they provide also extends far beyond the individuals concerned. Their collective impact operates on two primary levels: claimed action to safeguard the passing of time, but also invisible or even unconscious action that leads to a perpetual reformation of the world. This invites us to consider the political significance of emotional links and their sensory interpretation from the perspective of a collective self-portrait, a mirror of an inhabited and malleable world.