Translating Sensory Experience

Inspired by the postcolonial project of decentering previously dominant or hierarchical power structures, this methodological panel calls for a broad engagement with recentering of the senses in academic knowledge production and dissemination. The panel aims to explore novel practice-based methods for engaging with sensory experience and translating the senses into and out of various knowledge media or formats. Indicative practices may translate sensory experience into text; translate from narrative into experimental or performative formats; extend methods for recording to new methods for disseminating sensory experience; and innovate existing and new adaptive technologies that expand sensory experiences. Decentering postcolonial power structures and recentering the senses may also involve stepping beyond interaction to emplace the senses in the lived environment and more-than-human lifeworld, such as relocating mundane sensory experiences of the climate and seasons away from a rigid universalizing seasonal calendar and recovery of the senses and diversity of sensations from records of human experience of the natural or built environment, including but not limited to official historical papers, audio visual recordings, personal diaries and biographical narratives, oral histories, digital records and social media content about performances and multi-sensory experiential events. The panel seeks methodologically rich contributions that draw on postcolonialism and sensory studies to propose novel ways to challenge the dominance of traditional or conventional formats for knowledge production and dissemination, such as a standard 15-20 minute narrative conference paper or 6,000-7,000 word narrative research publication scripted in formal academic language. Please share any audio visual requirements in your proposal.