My reading of Sarah Pink’s Doing Sensory Ethnography gave the sensation of entering into an entirely new universe.  As a good ethnographer, I took Pink’s advice to heart of not “being completely prepared…before starting” (Kindle Ed. 1121), I ventured into this new world, totally oblivious to what I would find.  What I found was a world disorientating to one who is trained in history where research is primarily through reading and writing.  We study at a distant a thing that is done and past.  Then we make pronouncements of our findings as if from on high.  This is why stepping into the world of Sensory Ethnography is so disorientating, it opens up whole new vistas of ideas, theories, understanding and challenges that required a great deal of processing for the outsider.  Like the ethnographer, the startling newness to these ideas require a rethinking of one’s assumptions and experiences, requiring a redefinition of what constitutes research.

For me, the most challenging concept was that of attentive engagement in research.  Here, Pink suggests a radically different form of research.  She views “ethnography as a participatory practice” which “is framed with ideas of learning as embodied, emplaced, sensorial and empathetic, rather than occurring simply through a mix of participation and observations.” (Kindle Ed. 1535).  She suggests that we “know” through experience and engagement, which are central to this methodology.  From the starting points of self-reflexivity and withholding personal agendas, to intimate involvement in the lives of individuals and their cultural practices with all one’s senses, requires the researcher becomes an actual participant in that which is being researched.   For Pink, knowledge is produced through context (place), negotiations and intersubjectivities. (Kindle Ed. 190).  Though this approach does not claim to actually capture a complete understanding, it does “provide routes into understanding other people’s lives, experiences, values, social worlds,” more than traditional methods of objective observation.  (Kindle Ed. 220)

This idea of the researcher as participant finds support in the fact that our knowing is always made up of interaction with others in a particular context through the involvement all our senses.  For a researcher to begin to understand fully a culture, they must experience the cultures specific sensory categories and the moralities attached to the senses and the sensory practices.  This personal involvement will elicit the meanings within the sensory experiences that often are not easily visible to the outside observer.  No longer is the researcher than required to stand above or outside.  The researcher is now embedded in the research and embodies the practices and meanings of those being researched through negotiation, participation and reflexivity.  For the historian, to enter in and participate in one’s research is really quite radical and will take some getting used to!

As I reflect on my historical habits of observation at a distance, it reminded me of my approach to the studying Scripture. Here, Pink’s reminder of the whole array of sensorial detail in any culture, might help open up a far more instructive way to approach Scripture.   As any religion in ancient times, the Hebrew religion was a cornucopia of the sensory experiences.  Their culture was made up of art (highly decorated temple) and food (numerous feasts) and their worship involved music and dance, robes and readings.  But the one area that I often struggle to even begin to imagine is the sacrificial practices of the temple.  Think about it: Animals gathered into a small area along with crowds of people; food smells mixed with the smell of blood and rotting flesh of sacrificed animals; smoke and burning fat and meat along with incense; the smell of crops from the fields that were brought for offerings and the cacophony of animals, priests and people.  What a rich array of sensations that would overwhelm any modern city dweller.  Or think of the Passover meal, filled with tastes that elicited rich memories of God and His might works.   As Pink reminds us, in these sensory experiences the Hebrews found their very meaning and their place in life and their place with God.  Their space was filled with people and animals and feasts and worship.  How much then do we miss out in our understanding of Hebrew Scripture by not approaching them as good ethnographers, to try to step into that culture and the lives lived in that world to experience real Hebrew life and religion?  Might we gain new insights and knowledge by attentive engagement with Scripture rather than a distant and divorced study of the words before us?

Lastly, I have to wonder about the state of Church.  In light of Pink’s insights that knowing and meaning come through participation, relationships and involvement in the multi-sensory culture, how is the Church today then set up to be a that counter-cultural space where an outsider can come to know more fully the truth of Jesus.  It seems in our attempts at being “seeker friendly”, we have become the culture we seek to reach and influence.  More often, we sound and smell and look the same as the rest of the world around us!  Even entering into our worship services does not startle and unsettle the outsider.  If we are so like the outside culture, can the Church be that counter-culture community that challenges the newcomer to a different way of life, of meaning and purpose?  Should the Church not be that radical, counter-cultural community: a place that informs through relationships and whose practices provide meaning through sight, sound, touch, taste and smell?  Without this radical counter-cultural community to teach and apprentice new believers, is it any wonder that few Christians today exhibit radical changes in their lives upon meeting Jesus and His Church?

John W.