Collecting Sensorial Litter: Ethnographic Reflexive Grappling With Corporeal Complexity

Abstract

In this three-part narrative paper, I put forward “collecting sensorial litter” as an innovative method for helping ethnographers reflexively grapple with complicated corporeality during fieldwork. First, I highlight the continued need for experimentation with body-based reflexive methods that can help capture the messiness of ethnographers’ experiences, especially for sensuous, embodied forms of ethnography. Second, I use theories of intensity and embodiment to conceptualize the “too intense experiences” that are refuse/d by ethnographers’ bodies (e.g., fleeting, whirling emotions; spatial disorientations). Third, I draw upon my fieldwork to illustrate that such experiences are not lost when refuse/d, but manifest symbolically and materially as “sensorial litter.” I detail my methodological process for: A) identifying B) re-claiming and C) reflexively considering three pieces of sensorial litter. I argue the value of collecting sensorial litter includes enhancing self-communication, attending to uncomfortable power relations, and rendering visible critical data (perhaps) inadvertently thrown away in research.