Etnografia w badaniu synestezji, czyli skąd ten pomysł, po co i dlaczego „Coca-Cola” się nie świeci?
Ethnography in synaesthesia research: On the origins of the idea, its purpose and the reason Coke does not shimmer

Summary/Abstract: For almost 200 years synaesthesia has been a subject of psychological, medical, neurobilogical and philosophical studies. Recently, reasearchers from the fields of neurosciences and linguistics joined the debate. In this article I argue that anthropology and ethnography can also be an important part of synaesthesia research. I start by presenting a selective history of synaesthesia research. This is followed by a depiction of synaesthesia as seen from an anthropological perspective, and a brief description of ethnographic methodology. I conclude by outlining the initial results of my present ethnographic research project on the everyday life of synaesthets. While these findings are preliminary and cannot be used as a basis for formulating a hypothesis or theory, they do – in my opinion – prove the value of an ethnography-based approach to synaesthesia. The gathered ethnographic material could also be used as a contribution to the discourse about ethnography itself, and how interdisciplinary research could enrich anthropology and ethnology as disciplines.

• Details
• Contents