The Senses and the Social: An Introduction

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Acknowledgments

Most of the articles in this volume were presented in the Ethnicity and Identity seminar series on Senses of Identity at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, in Hilary Term 2006. My thanks go first and foremost to Shirley Ardener, as she knew of my ongoing research on tactility and pain, and had the idea of doing a seminar series on the senses, but generously left the choice of speakers and editing of the volume to myself. I also wish to thank the speakers and contributors for a pleasant process of collaboration, Koen Stroeken for valuable comments on the introduction, and Mark Graham for his rigorous editorial advice and judicious choice of anonymous reviewers.

Notes

This paragraph builds on and responds to Merleau-Ponty 1962, Stoller 1989, Csordas 1994, Ingold 2000, Herzfeld 2001:245.

Herzfeld's (ibid.) definition, ‘Social codes determine what constitutes acceptable sensory behaviour and indicate what different sensory experiences mean’, obviously is the one Stroeken works with as well.