Towards a Sociology of Vestiges

Abstract

This essay has the purpose of underlying how an analytic approach about traces,marks and footprints is an important contribution to sociology at digital era. To achieve this goal, the essay takes the central idea of the book “What People Leave Behind Marks, Traces, Footprints and their Relevance to Knowledge Society”, like sources to show a first presentation of a sociology of vestiges to elaborate one vision of experience in the sociology of emotions endeavours.We have followed the ideas of this book as an open door to understand how absences, symptoms and messages are the possibility of constitution a sociology of vestige in a digital world. The main argumentative structure is (a) we briefly present the place of trace on social analysis, (b) the epistemic power of etymology of the terms is synthesized, (c) we show the use of traces in classical social research, (d) vestiges as absences, symptoms and messages are schematized, and finally a door towards a sociology of experience through vestiges is open.This essay is an opportunity to draw attention to the importance of elaborating an analysis of the vestiges to understand the human experience in the framework of a sociology on digital emotions.