THE SEDATIVE FUNCTION OF MATERIAL CULTURE: ON THE ESSENCE OF APOTROPAIC
Abstract
The methodology used by historians of emotions in their research is a subject of controversy. Understanding of the functional relationship between material culture and human emotions will allow solving them and systematizing approaches. The purpose of the article is to conceptualize the sedative function of material culture and reveal the potential of this concept for the history of emotions. The research was conducted within the structuralist approach using phenomenological and structural-functional methods. The psychoanalytical approach also played a big role in the research. The article examines the current state of the use of artifacts of material culture in the research of historians of emotions and the philosophical and ontological basis of considering material objects as full-fledged actors of emotional communities. Cultural theories were analyzed (TMT, mood management theory, P. Ado's concept of "spiritual practices" and others), their connection with the idea of the sedative function of material culture and the ontology of things in general. It was determined that the most demonstrative example of the implementation of the sedative function of material objects is apotropaic. Their use is considered through the prism of the concepts of "transitional object" (D. Winnicott) and "self-soothing practices" (Zh. Shvek). It has been established that the study of apotropaic as tools of individual and social management of affects will allow historians of emotions to learn more about the peculiarities of experiencing emotions in different communities, about the sources of these affects, the locations associated with them and the unconscious and conscious fantasies hidden behind them. The main function of apotropaic magic is the fight against negative emotions (horror, anxiety, hatred, envy, disgust) and their awakening for the purpose of neurotic retraumatization. This function can be considered not only in the case of apotropaic, but also for the analysis of other artifacts of material culture, including works of art and architecture. The study brings to the history of emotions a methodological rationale for the study of monuments of material culture, and to the philosophy of culture – the concept of a sedative function.
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