What is
Sensory
Ethnography?
Sarah Pink
Loughborough University
s.pink@lboro.ac.uk
What is Sensory Ethnography?
A re-thinking of ethnographic methods
with attention to sensory perception,
experience and categories (not simply
ethnographic research about the senses)
This lecture gives an overview of how
this field is emerging and the types of
research methods it employs
An introductory story (to be told at the presentation)
‘the five senses do not travel along separate channels, but interact to a degree
few scientists would have believed only a decade ago’ (Richard E. Cytowic
(professor of neurology) 2010: 46)
See link to review at
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/04/extraordinary-secrets-of-ourlinked-up-senses.html
What is ethnography and why do we need
a sensory ethnography?
A useful minimum definition by Karen O’Reilly as:
‘iterative-inductive research (that evolves in design through the study), drawing on
a family of methods, involving direct and sustained contact with human agents,
within the context of their daily lives (and cultures), watching what happens,
listening to what is said, asking questions, and producing a richly written account
that respects the irreducibility of human experience, that acknowledges the role of
theory as well as the researcher’s own role and that views humans as part
object/part subject’ (O’Reilly 2005: 3).
Sensory ethnography goes beyond this in a number of ways:
-
It is informed by an understanding of the interconnected senses
-
It incorporates ‘innovative methods’ to go beyond listening and watching, using multiple
media
-
It goes beyond the use of writing in ethnographic representation, looking towards arts practice
Sensory Ethnography in context from the
1990s to 2010
Several layers of re-thinkings of ethnography as: reflexive … gendered …
embodied … visual … digital …sensory … (the sensory ethnographer is all
these things)
New ways of understanding the products of ethnographic methods – from
collecting data …. to producing knowledge ... to knowing in practice
A move ‘beyond text’ to the tacit, unspoken, non-verbal … from writing, to
documentary film and photography to new engagements with arts
practice
Shifting agendas from academic research, to applied ethnography, to public
ethnography, requiring new ways of engaging (with) research participants
and audiences
Why re-think ethnography as sensory?
Theoretical impulse: the sensory turn across disciplines has produced
understandings of experience, practice and knowledge as multisensory –
involving all the senses, and understanding the senses as interconnected rendering the conventional focus on observing, listening and
writing/reading insufficient
Methodological demand: new innovative methods being developed and a
need to understand the sorts of knowledge they produce through a
paradigm that recognises the sensory experiences they involve
Public/applied/knowledge transfer: a context where in order to engage nonacademics and wider publics with the findings of ethnographic research
requires going beyond conventional written articles and reports, turning
instead to participatory arts and other types of encounter
Principles for a sensory ethnography
The idea of a sensory ethnography responds to three contemporary
theoretical challenges that disrupt the idea of ethnography being
about watching and listening
• Emplacement – mind-body-environment (see Howes 2005)
• The interconnected senses, sensory perception and sensory
categories (see Ingold 2000)
• Knowing in practice and knowing that we can’t necessarily express
in words (see e.g.. Wenger 1998, Harris 2007)
Practicing sensory ethnography
Rethinking participant observation:
- From participant observation to multisensory participation
- Innovative methods in sensory ethnography – walking with, eating
with, sensing with
Rethinking the interview:
– The interview as a multisensory ‘event’
– The interview as a way of probing sensory categories
From participant observation to
multisensory participation
•
Understanding participation as producing multisensorial and emplaced ways of
knowing
•
Whereby visual observation is not necessarily privileged …
•
… and reflexivity is a pre-condition
•
This constitutes an important shift from conventional approaches to ethnography
which have tended to understand that ‘the visual is the most important mode of
understanding’ (Atkinson et al 2007: 180).
•
Instead it builds on phenomenological arguments that experience is multisensorial
and neither dominated by nor reducible to the visual
•
In some ways multisensory participation is not so different from the basic
definition of ethnography developed by O’Reilly. But it involves new forms of
understanding and engagement with participants.
Three key elements of multisensory
participation
• The serendipitous sensory learning of being there (e.g. in long term
ethnographic research, in research that involves intensive
participation in everyday or work activities, or festive events)
• The ethnographer as sensory apprentice (e.g. in learning sporting,
dance or other skilled practices)
• Joining others in embodied activities (e.g. walking and eating)
The serendipitous sensory learning of
being there
The ethnographer as sensory apprentice
•
One of the most discussed methods in the sensory ethnography literature
•
It is through actually engaging in the activities and environments we wish to learn about that we come to know
them.
•
On the basis of such participation the ethnographer then has to unravel the academic implications of such
learning and of the ways of knowing she or he has experienced.
•
Learning through apprenticeship requires an emplaced engagement with the practices and identities that one
seeks to understand.
•
This involves a reflexivity and self consciousness about this learning process, establishing connections between
sensory experience, specific sensory categories and philosophical, moral and other value laden discourses (and
the power relations and political processes they might be connected to), and creating relationships between these
and theoretical scholarship
•
Ethnographers have used different methods of participating as apprentices and of documenting their experiences
of apprenticeship, e.g. including visual methods (fixed and hand held cameras)
•
Examples are the work of: Cristina Grasseni (2007), Tomie Hahn (2007), Trevor Marchand (2007), Greg Downey
(2007)
Walking with others
For example:
Lee and Ingold’s (2006) walking ethnography in Aberdeen
Adams and Bruce’s (2008) walks in Manchester
Lund’s work on Walking in Spain (2008) and in Scotland (2006)
And my own work on ‘Walking with Video’ (Pink 2007) and ‘The Urban Tour’
(pink 2008)
Rethinking the interview:
as a multisensory event
• Whereas traditional approaches to p-o focus on vision, traditional
approaches to the interview concentrate on talking –
conceptualizing the interview as a kind of conversation.
• A sensory ethnography approach rethinks the interview as a
multisensory encounter and as part of a specific environment
• Talking and conversation are still of interest, but these are situated
within ecologies of place and embodied practices
Learning about sensory categories in
interviews
J
Well I do, yes, as long as I say its gone through there [through the washing
machine], even if its got a teeny little stain, and I couldn’t get it out with the … [laundry detergent], I
mean but generally I’ve not got, no I don’t think I’ve got anything like that …
S
… and do things feel different when they’re clean?
J
Ooh yes I think so definitely, yes, they do.
S
How do they feel?
J
Um, they just feel, well as I say, nicely pressed they do, fresh and certainly fresher, yeah.
S
What do you mean by fresher?
J
Um, just, well as I say when they are dirty and all that they’ve got that sweaty smell about them and grimy
on the collar and everything, so as I say, just, they’re just, they’re nicer to put on.
S
Yeah, and um how do you know if something is dirty? … You said it might smell of something.
J
Its smelly! Its smelly! Because as I say I know when its dirty … but if its white you cannot help but get a
grimy colour. Ever so strange, so [with shirts] as I say, usually by the collar
Representing sensory ethnography (or is it
non-representational?)
•
New practices for communicating the findings of sensory ethnography are
emerging
•
They sometimes involve scholarly writing, some are calling ethnographic
filmmaking sensory ethnography now, they also include collaborations with artists
•
This is an emergent field, with new opportunities to respond to the challenges or
finding ways to communicate in ways that are comprehensible to scholarly and
public audiences about sensory ways of knowing in other people’s worlds
•
Examples to explore (as well as Ch9 of Doing Sensory Ethnography)
– Christina Lammer’s work at www.corporealities.org and her blog at
http://www.corporealities.org/wordpress/
– And Walking, Ethnography and Arts Practice, a Special Issue of Visual Studies (Hubbard et al
2010)
Summing up
• Sensory ethnography is the latest in a series of revisions of ethnography
that respond to theoretical developments and applied/public research
agenda
• It acknowledges the interconnectedness of the senses and the importance
of research that goes beyond watching, listening and writing
• It reflexively uses ‘innovative methods’ and multiple media in research
and in the communication of research to diverse audiences
• It creates new possibilities for interdisciplinary collaborations
• Sensory ethnography is still an emergent field of practice
And finally … looking to the future
Interest in this area is growing considerably but there has been
surprising little reflection on the use of sensory methods in the
existing literature.
It is an emergent field of methodological interest, and more
discussion is needed
If you do sensory ethnography don’t just report on your findings,
but document and reflect on your methods to contribute to the
development of this field
References
See also my book Doing Sensory Ethnography (Pink 2009) for further references to and discussion of sensory ethnography
Adams, M. and N. Bruce (2008) ‘Soundwalking as methodology for understanding soundscapes’ in Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics 30(2).
Atkinson, P., S. Delamont, W. Housley (2007) Contours of Culture: Complex Ethnography and the Ethnography of Complexity, Rowman & Littlefield
Cytowic, R. (2010) ‘Our hidden superpowers’ New Scientist, 24th April 2010, p46.
Downey, G. (2007) ‘Seeing With a “Sideways Glance”: Visuomotor “knowing” and the Plasticity of Perception’ in M. Harris (ed) Ways of Knowing, New
Approaches in the Anthropology of Experience and Learning Oxford: Berghahn.
Grasseni (2007) ‘Communities of practice and forms of life: towards a rehabilitation of vision’ in M. Harris (ed) Ways of Knowing, New Approaches in the
Anthropology of Experience and Learning Oxford: Berghahn.
Hahn, T. (2007) Sensational Knowledge—Embodying Culture through Japanese Dance. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Harris, M. (2007) ‘Introduction: Ways of Knowing’ in M. Harris (ed) Ways of Knowing, New Approaches in the Anthropology of Experience and Learning
Oxford: Berghahn.
Howes, D. (2005) Introduction to D. Howes (ed) Empire of the Senses: The Sensory Culture Reader, Oxford: Berg
Hubbard, P. M. O’Neill, S. Pink and A. Radley (eds) (2010) Walking, art and ethnography a guest edited issue of Visual Studies.
Ingold, T. (2000) The Perception of the Environment, London: Routledge.
Lund, K. (2006) ‘Seeing in Motion and the Touching Eye: Walking over Scotland’s mountains’ in Bendix R. and D. Brenneis Guest Editors ‘Senses’ Etnofoor.
Anthropological Journal, Volume 18 (1): 27-42.
Lund, K. (2008) ‘Listen to the Sound of Time: Walking with Saints in an Andalusian Village’ in T. Ingold and J. Lee Vergunst (eds) Fieldwork on Foot. Ashgate.
Lee, J. and T. Ingold (2006) 'Fieldwork on foot: perceiving, routing, socializing', in S. Coleman, P. Collins (ed), Locating the Field. Space, Place and Context in
Anthropology. pp 67-86.
O’Reilly, K. (2005) Ethnographic Methods. London: Routledge.
Pink, S. (2007) ‘Walking with Video’ in Visual Studies 22(3): 240 – 252.
Pink, S. (2008) ‘An Urban Tour’ in Ethnography, 9(2): 175-196.
Pink. S. (2009) Doing Sensory Ethnography, London: Sage
Marchand, T. (2007) ‘Crafting Knowledge: the role of “parsing and production” in the communication of skill-based knowledge among masons’ in M. Harris
(ed) Ways of Knowing, New Approaches in the Anthropology of Experience and Learning Oxford: Berghahn.
Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
What is
Sensory
Ethnography?
Sarah Pink
Loughborough University
s.pink@lboro.ac.uk