Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
766788
DOI: 10.1177/0309132509103155
Haptic geographies: ethnography, haptic
knowledges and sensuous dispositions
Mark Paterson*
School of Geography, Archaeology and Earth Resources, University of Exeter,
Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4RJ, UK
Abstract: This paper is the rst overview of the treatment of haptic knowledges in geography,
responding to bodily sensations and responses that arise through the embodied researcher. After
Crangs (2003) article on touchy-feely methods identies the dearth of actual touching and
embodied feeling in research methods, this article does three things. First, it claries the terminology,
which is derived from a number of disciplines. Second, it summarizes developments in sensuous
ethnographies within cultural geography and anthropology. Third, it suggests pathways to new
research on sensuous dispositions and non-representational theory. We thereby see just how
touchy-feely qualitative methods have, or might, become.
Key words: ethnography, haptic, phenomenology, senses, touch.
*Email: m.w.d.paterson@exeter.ac.uk