Haptic geographies: ethnography, haptic knowledges and sensuous dispositions

Abstract

This paper is the first overview of the treatment of haptic knowledges in geography, responding to bodily sensations and responses that arise through the embodied researcher. After Crang’s (2003) article on ‘touchy-feely’ methods identifies the dearth of actual touching and embodied feeling in research methods, this article does three things. First, it clarifies 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.