The Social Meaning Of The Senses

That which we consider to be real we call knowledge. As a rule, we consider what our five senses convey to us to be real. Our perception and what we consider real and construct as socially effective differs depending on which senses we focus on and how intensively. The connection between reality constructions and sensory conditions has received little attention in social research so far. This concerns, for example, the use of our sensory organs for empirical reconstructions of bodies of knowledge, sensory perceptions as part of bodies of knowledge, or the question of how far knowledge is dependent on sensory abilities. This anthology attempts to close this gap by focusing on the social significance of sensory perceptions and discussing it using the example of various objects of investigation. This book is a translation of an original German edition. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation.

The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture is the definitive guide to the sociological and anthropological study of the senses. Vannini, Waskul, and Gottschalk provide a comprehensive map of the social and cultural significance of the senses that is woven in a thorough analytical review of classical, recent, and emerging scholarship and grounded in original empirical data that deepens the review and analysis. By bridging cultural/qualitative sociology and cultural/humanistic anthropology, The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture explicitly blurs boundaries that are particularly weak in this field due to the ethnographic scope of much research. Serving both the sociological and anthropological constituencies at once means bridging ethnographic traditions, cultural foci, and socioecological approaches to embodiment and sensuousness. The Senses in Self,Society, and Culture is intended to be a milestone in the social sciences’ somatic turn.

Sensory Experiences: Exploring meaning and the senses describes the collective elaboration of a situated cognitive approach with an emphasis on the relations between language and cognition within and across different sensory modalities and practices. This approach, grounded in 40 years of empirical research, is a departure from the analytic, reductive view of human experiences as information processing. The book is structured into two parts. Each author first introduces the situated cognitive approach from their respective sensory domains (vision, audition, olfaction, gustation). The second part is the collective effort to derive methodological guidelines respecting the ecological validity of experimental investigations while formulating operational answers to applied questions (such as the sensory quality of environments and product design). This book will be of interest to students, researchers and practitioners dealing with sensory experiences and anyone who wants to understand and celebrate the cultural diversity of human productions that make life enjoyable!

Everyday Life in Asia offers a range of detailed case studies which present social perspectives on sensory experiences in Asia. Thematically organized around the notions of the experience of space and place, tradition and the senses, cross-border sensory experiences, and habitus and the senses - its rich empirical content reveals people's commitment to place, and the manner in which its sensory experience provides the key to penetrating the meanings abound in everyday life. Offering the first close analysis of various facets of sensory experience in places that share a geographical location or cultural orientation in Asia, this collection links the conception of place with understandings of 'how the senses work'. With contributions from an international team of experts, Everyday Life in Asia will be of interest to anthropologists, geographers and sociologists with interests in culture, everyday life, and their relation to the senses of place and space.

The ancient world used the senses to express an enormous range of cultural meanings. Indeed the senses were functionally significant in all aspects of ancient life, often in ways that were complex and interconnected. Antiquity was also a period where the senses were experienced vividly: cities stank, statues were brightly painted and literature made full use of sensory imagery to create its effects. In a steeply hierarchical world, with vast differences between the landed wealthy, the poor and the slaves, the senses played a key role in establishing and maintaining boundaries between social groups; but the use of the senses in the ancient world was not static. New religions, such as Christianity, developed their own way of using the senses, acquiring unique forms of sensory-related symbolism in processes which were slow and often contested. The aim of this volume is to provide an overview of these structures and developments and to show how their study can yield a more nuanced understanding of the ancient world. The Cultural History of the Senses set delves into the sensory foundations of Western civilization, taking a comprehensive period-by-period approach which provides a broad understanding of the life of the senses from antiquity to the modern day. Each of the volumes explores the following topics: The Social Life of the Senses; Urban Sensations; The Senses in the Marketplace; The Senses in Religion; The Senses in Philosophy and Science; Medicine and the Senses; The Senses in Literature; Art and the Senses; and Sensory Media. Superbly illustrated, this six-volume set is the most authoritative and comprehensive historical survey of the senses available.

In the 20th century, many aspects of life became 'a matter of perception' in the wake of the multiplication of media, stylistic experimentation, and the rise of multiculturalism. Life sped up as a result of new modes of transportation – automobiles and airplanes – and communication – telephones and personal computers – which emphasized the rapid movement of people and ideas. The proliferation of synthetic products and simulated experiences, from artificial flavors to video games, in turn, created heady virtual worlds of sensation. This progressive mediation and acceleration of sensation, along with the sensory and environmental pollution it often spawned, also sparked various countertrends, such as the 'back to nature' movement, the craft movement, slow food and alternative medicine. This volume shows how attending to the sensory dynamics of the modern age yields many fresh insights into the intertwined processes which gave the 20th century its particular feel of technological prowess and gaudy artificiality. A Cultural History of the Senses in the Modern Age presents essays on the following topics: the social life of the senses; urban sensations; the senses in the marketplace; the senses in religion; the senses in philosophy and science; medicine and the senses; the senses in literature; art and the senses; and sensory media.

The Social Sense® Program combines the viewpoints and experiences of an occupational therapy and speech pathology team. During the last decade the team has created and implemented lesson plans that utilize sensory based activities for teaching complex social skills. This step-by-step program can be used when working with social groups or performing therapy sessions in both the school and clinical setting. This practical book addresses social communication and pragmatic language goals as well as adaptations for sessions with students from kindergarten through high school. Can be utilized by professionals from all backgroundsLessons are designed to easily fit within a school calendarCapitalizes on current brain research as the foundation for the activitiesTargets experiential learningUtilizes knowledge of sensory processing to take advantage of the primitive brainTeaches visualization strategies to prepare for future social interactionsIncreases executive functioning capabilities

In Race and the Senses, Sachi Sekimoto and Christopher Brown explore the sensorial and phenomenological materiality of race as it is felt and sensed by the racialized subjects. Situating the lived body as an active, affective, and sensing participant in racialized realities, they argue that race is not simply marked on our bodies, but rather felt and registered through our senses. They illuminate the sensorial landscape of racialized world by combining the scholarship in sensory studies, phenomenology, and intercultural communication. Each chapter elaborates on the felt bodily sensations of race, racism, and racialization that illuminate how somatic labor plays a significant role in the construction of racialized relations of sensing. Their thought-provoking theorizing about the relationship between race and the senses include race as a sensory assemblage, the phenomenology of the racialized face and tongue, kinesthetic feelings of blackness, as well as the possibility of cross-racial empathy. Race is not merely socially constructed, but multisensorially assembled, engaged, and experienced. Grounded in the authors’ experiences, one as a Japanese woman living in the USA, and the other as an African American man from Chicago, Race and the Senses is a book about how we feel the racialized world into being.