Senses as method

Decentring authoritative accounts of remembering and forgetting in social memory making

Bibliographic Data

ID19225902
AuthorsC Earl (0000-0002-7979-5453, RMIT Vietnam, corresponding author)
Year2026
Volume54
Issue3
Pages100263-100263
Publication date2026-06-12
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAsian journal of social science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1568-4849 • E-ISSN: 2212-3857
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.ajss.2026.100263
OpenAlexW7164484932
LanguageEN
References cited27

This article is part of a broader project that challenges dominant readings of social interactions with the aim of decentring authoritative accounts of knowledge production in social anthropology and cognate disciplines. I examine field research examples that reveal the differential value placed on senses, emotions and memory in telling personal and community stories from the bottom up. This article draws on Haraway’s composting storying approach to pile up and turn over four moments from my participant observation on a public bus ride in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. My approach questions the production of authoritative accounts and draws attention to the multiplying and unsettling effect of a sensory frisson – a sudden strong feeling, a thrill, an interaction – in fieldwork accounts. I reflect on whether overlooking the senses amounts to a form of authoritarianism shaped by disciplinary expectations, institutional requirements and researcher ambitions in knowledge production in ethnographic research

Asian studies · Forgetting · Motivated forgetting · Retrieval-induced forgetting · Social memory · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics

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Open DOIOpen Access