We invite submissions to participate in two free events organized and coordinated by the ‘Senses and Society’ Thematic Group (TG07) of the International Sociological Association and hosted by the Sociology Department of National University of Singapore (NUS). A vibrant and multicultural city like Singapore offers a highly suitable location for a conference and graduate workshop that seeks to engage with new and exciting scholarship on sensory approaches to embodied practices, urban experience, tourism, heritage, mobilities, food cultures, and more.

Research on the senses and sensory methods is a rapidly developing multidisciplinary area which thrives on collaboration and knowledge-sharing. However, researchers are concentrated more in Europe and the US than in Asia. As a globally-connected and internationally-minded research group, we are committed to including voices and experiences from outside the Global North.

Drawing on the rich traditions of sensory ethnography, phenomenological sociology, and the anthropology of the body and embodiment, the workshop and international conference poses questions such as: how are the senses trained, disciplined, and differentiated across societies? How do structures and processes of sensory attention produce and reproduce social hierarchies? How, when, and why do sensations become the site of contestations? And what can attention to smell, taste, touch, sound, and sight — and to their entanglements — reveal that other modes of inquiry cannot?

1. Graduate workshop (December 2). Capacity-building sessions led by international experts for around 20 graduate students. Sessions will include the intersection of sensory research with fieldwork practices, classroom pedagogy, and theoretical orientations, and practical advice on publishing strategies (two members of the editorial board of The Senses and Society will be present). With tea break and lunch provided onsite. Registration is required, but the event is free for participants. 

2. A two-day international conference (December 3-4). A single-stream conference with 8 panels which brings together new and exciting research from sociologists, anthropologists, human geographers, urban studies, and others to examine sensory experience as a theoretical, conceptual, and methodological lens for understanding social life in its full, embodied complexity. Decentering the textual and visual supremacy in social scientific inquiry, papers will be selected that seek to generate theories, tools, and techniques that enable researchers to ‘think sensorially’. Free, but registration is required for all participants and paper presenters.

In addition, the city of Singapore offers a number of possibilities for visitors to engage their senses and pursue mindful tourism. The conference organizers are happy to suggest informal guided activities after the conference, including a ‘ghost walk’, heritage trail, and visits to food markets and street food sites.

Themes and Topics 

We welcome both empirically grounded and theoretically oriented contributions, and particularly encourage work that engages with sensory methods, multimodal fieldwork, or non-Western, decolonial, and posthumanist sensory epistemologies. 

Abstracts for papers may therefore address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• Social construction and cultural variability of the senses and the sensorium
• Sensory engagements with infrastructures and socio-technical systems
• The role of senses and sensations in embodied practices like sports, dance, pilgrimage, cooking, walking
• Olfaction, soundscapes, and tactility in urban and everyday life
• Sensory labour, work, and tacit knowledges
• Colonialism, sensory governance, and modes of perception
• Methodological innovations in sensory ethnography and fieldwork
• Technologies of sensation: prosthetics, mediation, and enhancement
• Disability, sensory absence, and non-normative perceptual worlds
• Synasthesia, collaborative and disrupted sensory experiences
• Teaching sensory ethnography, sensory studies, and sensory practice
• The relationship between senses and affects in social interactions and social milieu

Submission Guidelines

Applicants are welcome to attend both events, the graduate workshop and the international conference, but registration is required for both events. Apply here: https://forms.gle/z2V3tRv1NjJ9X4Hv5 by September 14

1. Graduate workshop: the online application form will request i) a brief overview of your research project (50-100 words), and ii) a short motivation statement about your wish to participate (150-200 words). This might include what you consider useful for your own professional development (in terms of e.g. pedagogy, publishing, fieldwork, theoretical development).

2. International conference: abstracts of 250-300 words should clearly articulate the paper's central argument and relevance to the conference themes, theoretical contribution, and if an empirical paper, its methodology. The online application form will also request i) 5 keywords; ii) your institutional affiliation; iii) an up-to-date CV; and iv) a short biographical note (up to 100 words). Submissions are welcome from researchers at all career stages. We especially encourage early-career scholars and postgraduate students to apply.

Organizing Committee

Catherine Earl (RMIT Vietnam)
Sneha Annavarapu (NUS)
Charul Mehndiratta (NUS)
Mark Paterson (University of Pittsburgh)