Knowledge of/Through the Senses: Learning,Doing,Maneuvering

Abstract

Human sensing, when taken as a conceptual tool, allows us to acquire wisdom in the sense that we are able to feel, acknowledge, and respond in a variety of ways. Through sensing, sensory interactions and knowledge both condition and configure human interpretation and meaning-making. These forms and processes of sensory interaction, knowledge circulation, and transference have transpired and traversed a vast range of domains analyzed in various disciplines in the social sciences, humanities, and beyond. This special issue presents a collection of articles selected from a workshop that earlier took place at the National University of Singapore. By drawing attention to different sites and contexts across Asia, the authors deliberate upon how social actors negotiate and respond to sensory learning, doing, and maneuvering. Through a closer and more nuanced engagement with how sensory knowledge is acquired, deployed, and contested, the papers foreground sense-making scripts and practices across cultures and social groups which may intersect with, contest and/or complement other forms and domains of knowledge-acquisition and knowledge-use. Contributors focus on different aspects of social life that include medical healing practices, permaculture, youth and pedagogy, clay sensibilities and technical knowledge, and marketplace ethnography. They therefore engage critically with a wide-ranging spectrum of discussion and analysis pertaining to the sensory and its multiple forms, engagements, and contestations. By delineating and unpacking varied ecologies of sensory knowledge and the processes of learning, doing, and maneuvering, the papers also develop refreshed theoretical interventions in examining sensory knowledge, practice, and infrastructure as they interrelate extant scholarship.