The senses-in-action: visual and haptic encounters with occasioned environments

Smith, Robin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7457-9690, Smith, Thomas ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7221-1868 and Pehkonen, Samu 2025. The senses-in-action: visual and haptic encounters with occasioned environments. Gibson, Will, Ruiz-Junco, Natalia and vom Lehn, Dirk, eds. Sensing Life: the social organisation of the senses in interaction, Routledge,

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Abstract

This chapter advances the sociology of the senses by developing a radical praxeological approach to the perceptual availability of landscapes and environments, particularly within the context of orienteering. In challenging traditional views of passive perception, it emphasises how environments are actively produced through sensory practices tied to specific tasks. Drawing on ethnomethodology and natural language sociology, the chapter explores how sensory experiences are socially and contextually accomplished rather than merely communicated. Through the analysis of video materials gathered from an orienteering race, the chapter examines how features of the environment, such as fences and stiles, become practical resources for navigation, occasioning shifts in perception and action relating to the work of route-finding. Additionally, it discusses how haptic encounters, and specifically being stung by a plant, reconfigure the perceptual field, leading to shifts in aspect and environmental awareness. The chapter ultimately argues for a reflexive understanding of sensory practices as integral to the dynamic accomplishment of the environment-in-action.

Item Type:	Book Section
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education) Geography and Planning (GEOPL)
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General) H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Uncontrolled Keywords:	ethnomethodology, interaction, the senses, perception, mobility, environment, landscape
Publisher:	Routledge
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	20 November 2024
Last Modified:	13 Dec 2024 17:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/174156

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