This book is a collective work born from a shared desire to rethink how research in the social sciences is written and transmitted. Created by a group of anthropologists–artists, it proposes an original gesture that brings together text, image, and sound in order to question the narrative forms of contemporary anthropology.
Drawing on six ethnographic inquiries conducted in France, Portugal, Romania, and the Congo, the book explores sensory experience across diverse social and political contexts. Inspired by phenomenology, these studies examine the living world, relationships between humans and non-humans, sensory perception, soil, time, climate, and colonial memory. In doing so, the project opens a breach in traditional modes of scientific narration, proposing a decentered form of writing in which the figure of the author gives way to a collective assemblage of sensitive materials. Narrative design, graphic layout, and visual composition are not secondary stages but integral elements of the research process itself, making form an epistemological dimension of the work.
More than something to read, this book is meant to be seen, heard, and felt. It invites readers into a sensory immersion in lived worlds that often remain unspoken, reimagining how ethnographic research can be shared. The project therefore proposes a multimodal reading experience across both the printed book and a dedicated website featuring films, interviews, and other ethnographic traces. More than a publication, STRATA becomes an experience of thought, perception, and sensibility.
This project is supported by the A*MIDEX ANFAA (Alternative Narrative Forms in Audiovisual Anthropology) Excellence Chair at Aix-Marseille University / IDEAS.
Join us on Friday 13 March 6–8pm for the Marseille launch of Strata!
Edited by Céline Pévrier
Published by sun/sun
Graphic design by Typical Organization
Photogravure Fausto Urru
Proofreading & translation Mathias Lefevre
Texts and images
Aurélie Darbouret
Camilo Leon Quijano
Petna Ndaliko Katondolo
Daniela Rodrigues
Jeff Silva
Laurent Van Lancker
Texts by Marie Robert and Clara Bastid (French)
Essay by Bernard Loupias (French)
16.6 × 25 cm, 196 pages
ISBN 979-10-95233-57-2
November 2025
