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Beyond text? Critical practices and sensory anthropology

Online ISBN:
9781526109958
Print ISBN:
9780719085055
Publisher:
Manchester University Press
Book

Beyond text? Critical practices and sensory anthropology

Rupert Cox (ed.),
Rupert Cox
(ed.)
University of Manchester
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Andrew Irving (ed.),
Andrew Irving
(ed.)
University of Manchester
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Christopher Wright (ed.)
Christopher Wright
(ed.)
University of London
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Published:
1 March 2016
Online ISBN:
9781526109958
Print ISBN:
9780719085055
Publisher:
Manchester University Press

Abstract

Beyond text?: Critical practices and sensory anthropology addresses a series of questions concerning the relationship between anthropological understandings of the world, sensory perception and aesthetic practices. The book suggests that if different sensory experiences embody and facilitate different kinds of knowledge, then we need to develop new methods and more appropriate forms of representation that are not based simply in text, writing or correspondence theories of truth. As such, Beyond Text: Critical Practices and Sensory Anthropology brings together leading figures in anthropology, visual, sound and film studies to explore how knowledge, sensation and embodied experiences can be researched and represented by combining different visual, aural, and textual forms—for example text and image, image and sound, body and voice. What—we ask—is the relationship between the interiority of a person’s experience and its exteriority that is present to the eye, the ear and other sense organs that make the experience ‘open’ to anthropological forms of documentation, theorisation and representation? We argue that there is a necessary, critical development in our ways of knowing that must take place not merely at the level of theory and representation but also through innovative fieldwork methods and media practices. The collected papers and audio-visual materials presented on a DVD, explore the potential for a more sensorially-grounded, critically aware and creative approach to cultural analysis, media production and field research.

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