An anthropology of processes of sensory learning and their implications for social differentiation in the field of contemporary perfumery

Thesis

In this thesis, I explore distinct modes of developing sensory knowledge in the field of practice of perfumery. In particular, I discuss the often confrontational relationship that the classically educated perfumers have with the self-trained ones and argue that different practices can subsist within the reality of contemporary perfumery, leading to sometimes overlapping skills but completely different practices. Considering both cognitive and metacognitive approaches to enskilment, I opt for the latter given that the subject of enskilment is olfaction and that I look at sensory anthropology from a phenomenological perspective. I, thus, reject common ideas of knowledge transmission according to motor-based representations of kinaesthetic and proprioceptive information, in favour of Ingold's (2001) theorisation of “education of attention” following Gibson (1979).

Through an analysis of "learning-in-practice" (Lave and Wenger, 1991) in terms of social capital and social participation, I carry on with my thesis connecting Lave and Wenger's (1991) formulation of "legitimate peripheral participation" to Bourdieu's (1977, 1990) "theory of practice". On this premise, I see the reproduction of the dominant social group, which is objectively recognised as the perfumers' community of practice, in conjunction with tactics of exclusion and inclusion depending on the kind of training that a perfumer underwent. Regardless of institutionally trained perfumers' strong opposition to self-training, I identify any practitioner who made an occupation out of perfumery as a "perfumer".

Authors: Barosco, M

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-o5epb4ny1
• Type of award: MPhil
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Habitus; Community of practice; Institutional perfumers; Misappropriated knowledge; Perfumery school; Perfumery; Self-training; Policing of knowledge; Contemporary perfumery; Jean Carles Method; Institutional training; Scents; Perfumes; Social capital; Transmission of knowledge; Ethnographic portraiture; Givaudan; Sensory anthropology; Independent perfumers; Anthropology of knowledge; Olfactory memory; Trainee perfumers; Raw materials; Bespoke perfumery; Education of knowledge; Legitimate knowledge
• Subjects: Independent perfumers; Odors; Community of practice; Education of knowledge; Trainee perfumers; Legitimate knowledge; Transmission of knowledge; Sensory anthropology; Anthropology of knowledge; Misappropriated knowledge; Habitus (Sociology); Social capital (Sociology); Contemporary perfumery; Policing of knowledge; Institutional training; Institutional perfumers; Perfumes; Self-training