Written by: rhbaker275 on September 19, 2013

To the person who is new to the field of ethnographic practice, in the book Doing Sensory Ethnography, Sarah Pink presents a multi-dimensional approach to doing ethnography.   Sensuality in ethnography is recognizing and encompassing the natural multisensory nature of the ethnographer and those participating in the research project (p.1).

In both of her books, visual and sensory ethnology, Pink recognizes and responds to the postmodern turn in the arena of ethnography study and practice. She depicts sensory experience in ethnography as a shift from classical ethnography as understood and practiced in a modern context. As in most fields of study, postmodernism creates debate in academics and with practitioners. Pink notes that the philosophical turn “is shaping empirical studies and real-world interventions” (p.7) in ethnographic research and methodologies. As a new student to the concepts and practices of ethnography, I must move deliberately and explore deeply in order to allow the academics to guide the application in my research. Pink relates in introducing the “possibilities afforded by attending to the senses in ethnographic research and representation,” over twenty substantial literary works with varying authorial concepts on the significance of the sensorial in ethnography.

Pink introduces interesting concepts into sensory ethnography. Many of the concepts I understand as part of cross-cultural ministry training. I have never consciously though in terms of research, that is, the representing, participant observation or interpretation and analysis when I have served on ministry teams or on special assignment ministry.  It was more the experience of being together; a sense of oneness that came as a result of just being there. In my experience, I never thought of it as “emplacement” but yet, in every aspect of being – I was there. Pink relates the concept this way:  “emplacement suggests the sensuous interrelationship of body– mind– environment” (p. 25).

I remember the situation of being in a Masai village helping to mediate conflict and bring reconciliation between community members. According to Masai cultural tradition, you celebrate such an event by eating a meal together. I was invited. I sat in a dimly lit room as the hind quarter of a goat was placed on the table with a machete. Each person cut a piece of the meat and we dipped it together. The Masai eat their meat red – very red; I watched as the blood oozed out on the platter. The hind-quarter of meat was hot; it had just come off the fire but it was more seared then cooked. I thought to myself, the stories are true; in fact, the Masai are known for drinking the blood from a slain animal. I joined in the meal – it was a meaningful experience that involved all of the senses. To be embodied or emplaced is to live within the context of the community; in such a situation one will experience the cultural and social nuances of life in that culture. We resolved a judicial/political conflict and celebrated it with a meal. Pink states “To conceptualize a sensory ethnography process requires an understanding that can account for both human perception and the political and power relations from which ethnographic research is inextricable” (p. 42). It is a challenge for the ethnographer (myself, in this case) to analyze and interpret all the emotions and feelings created through sensuous experiences when living cross-culturally. One must knowingly and intentionally seek to understand their own subjectivity while acknowledging the culturally sensuality of those sharing the experience.

The text relates the process, practice and methods in analysis and interpretation of sensory ethnography. This reminded me of our beginning discussions on critical thinking. Analysis, according to Pink, should be understood as the “second level of knowing and knowledge production” (p.119). The presentation of analysis reflects the methodologies used. The outcomes can range across systematic forms of reasoning and thinking to the mainly intuitive understanding of the ethnographer. A significant factor in analysis is that the ethnographer is responding to the embodied experience as it relates to the specific project or research question.

Leonard Sweet in his book, Nudge: Awakening Each Other to the God Who’s Already There, presents the sensual as the way we know God. Knowing the God within us comes through “human contact, the meeting of eyes, the sharing of space, the entanglement of words, and the sense of bodily interaction” (p.27).  It is through sensory experience that we discover God and “nudge” each other into a deep and meaningful relationship with God. Developing and enhancing the sensory experience in this context is much like the sensory ethnography; it encompasses mind, body and environment and leads to a multi-dimensional experience of the world in which we live, do research, and seek to understand one another.  In Pinks words, multisensoriality results in “focusing on forms of intimacy, sociality and emplacement” (p.153) that generate and create responses to research questions that would not be possible in lessor models of ethnography. Sweet states that  we are invited “to more sensational ways of living … A sensational Christian is one who uses all five senses” (Sweet, p.136).

Sweet, Leonard. Nudge:Awakening Each Other to the God Who’s Already There. Kindle. Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2010.

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rhbaker275