Sentient Conceptualisations: Feeling for Time in the Sciences of the Past

Sentient Conceptualisations is about how scientists studying the past understand time in relation to space. Simonetti argues that the feelings for depths and surfaces, arising from the bodily movements and gestures of scientific practice, strongly influence conceptualisations of space and time. With an anthropological eye, Simonetti explores the ways archaeologists and those from related disciplines develop expert knowledge in varied environments. The book draws on ethnographic work carried out with Chilean and Scottish archaeologists, working both on land and underwater, to analyse in depth the visual language of science and what it reveals about the relation between thinking and feeling.

Cristián Simonetti is Assistant Professor at the Programa de Antropología, Instituto de Sociología, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen, UK.