Various historical and literary sources contribute to assessing the importance of atmospheres and ambiances. Social sciences help shed light on the creating of both these notions in order to make of ambiance a reliable concept for actual descriptions and an operative one for research, distinct from atmosphere, at least in French. The anthropological approach evidences that conducting fieldwork on ambiances requires to experience them in one’s flesh. Thus, this introduction opens up questionings necessarily oriented toward a plurality of perspectives, which the diversity of contributions illustrates in this issue.