Paper short abstract:

Dealing with aesthetics and atmospheres enriches an anthropological approach to the city. In sense of Chicago School's "nosing around" fieldwork means not only collecting information but also sensing and observing aesthetic qualities and situations.

Paper long abstract:

"Nosing around" is the classical slogan of Robert Ezra Park and the Chicago School of urban Sociology (Vgl. Park 1925). From this perspective fieldwork is not only collecting information but also sensing and observing the mood of an interview partner or a situation. Especially attending to an urban environment is hardly imaginable without feeling atmospheres.

Dealing with aesthetics enriches an anthropological approach. But occasionally these qualities seem to be neglected in contrast to "hard facts" like statements or statistics. However, being concerned with aesthetics appears to answer doing ethnography at all.

Many a time specific moodedness is mentioned in urban contexts. German philosophers Wolfgang Welsch and Gernot Böhme think about new understandings of aesthetic qualities. They are interested in settings, which let an atmosphere grow, and differentiate between practices of creating and practices of percepting. Atmospheres can communicate between poles, the city as a whole and the city in their parts, everyday life and habitus, history and presence. Atmospheres can attach various levels in a city's texture.

In several ways the body of a researcher becomes a medium of sensual knowledge itself. On one hand experiencing architecture or urban spaces could be a seen as an aesthetical practice, and a participant observer always has to handle with dispositions. On the other hand interview partners transport stories and memories not only via comments but also via emotions and sensitivities. Following the circulation of knowledge researcher's body can be understood as an acceptor of these vibrations.