We Came Here to Remember: Using Participatory Sensory Ethnography to Explore Memory as Emplaced, Embodied Practice

Abstract

Memory can be seen as an emplaced phenomenon rather than as an internal, psychological archive. Approaches relating to cognition and memory as practice, seeing cognition as an extended, distributed phenomenon, will be considered in theoretical and empirical contexts in this article. Theoretical approaches to emplaced, embodied memory will be explored in the context of my sensory ethnographic research on place perception. I curated a series of sensory ethnographic engagements to explore how three international students from Tunisia, Indonesia, and Germany used emplaced knowledge and memories of their city and of their previous homes. Using a participatory sensory ethnography, involving walking interviews, my collaborators devised unique memorial responses to evoke their new and previous places of residence. The collaborations presented here illustrate the embodied, emplaced nature of memory. The use of sensory ethnography has enabled me to construct memory as an emplaced, embodied, multisensory phenomenon, rather than an internal archive.

Promoting resilience in street connected young people in Guatemala: The role of psychological and educational protective factors

“…These involve the researcher being physically emplaced within the participant's life‐world. Interviews were conducted in The Terminal (on the street), or the house building or church of the education outreach projects; locations participants frequented habitually (Stevenson, ). All interviews were mobile (Moles, ), semistructured and conducted in Spanish.…”

“…Terminal (on the street), or the house building or church of the education outreach projects; locations participants frequented habitually (Stevenson, 2014). All interviews were mobile (Moles, 2008), semistructured and conducted in Spanish.…”

Streets of resilience: Exploring the role of educational outreach projects with street connected young people in Guatemala City

“…Ethnographic interviewing engages with overlapping experiences of interviewers and interviewers, in relation to physical emplacement of the fieldworker and the sensory nature of the work. Previously, ethnographic interviewing has been used in relation to practices such as eating (Pink, ) and walking (Moles, ; Stevenson, ). Interviews took place in locations where participants were routinely familiar.…”

“…Interviews took place in locations where participants were routinely familiar. They were often conducted on‐the‐go (Stevenson, ), and always in Spanish. Example interview questions included (a) “Can you show me something that you enjoy doing here?” and (b) “If ever you had to leave this place, what would you miss?”…”

Place-Responsive Choreography and Activism

“…Such sensory encounters may also offer oppo1tunities for critical, reflexive theorising and practice (Pink, 2008(Pink, , 2009Stevenson, 2014;Warren, 2012). Within the myriad of potentialities offered in research, a focus on sensory and embodied encounters with local places prompts me to articulate intersections between local issues of social justice and environmental activism and feminist choreography.…”