Program of the online-workshop

Prof. Dr. Alia Al-Saji, McGill Univ., Canada

Prof. em. Dr. Wolfram Fischer, Univ. of Kassel, Germany

Sensual construction of body and biography

In this lecture/paper I shall firstly try to outline some properties of the embodiment of senses. The concept of the living, animate body (in German Leib) - in contrast to other objects -, and it’s functions will be sketched, especially: the constituting of the self, enabling the interaction with others, and in general creating his or her world.

Secondly I try to bridge „body" to „biography" by especially taking into account the temporality of acting, experiencing, remembering, and the person’s being in the world.

Finally I shall consider consequences of this for empirical research, arguing a) for multimodal analysis and reconstruction of interaction and b) focusing in hermeneutical studies of personal accounts on bodily features and topics.

Prof. Dr. Vaike Fors, Univ. of Halmstad, Sweden

Sensory realities of automated technologies

New technological possibilities associated with automated technologies such as self-tracking and self-driving cars are generating new questions and imaginaries about automated futures. Until recently, technological-driven research has dominated the field, but there is now a growing interest for hitherto neglected perspectives, for example the sensory realities of these emerging technologies. In this talk, I will discuss a theoretical-methodological approach towards researching this context based in pedagogical design anthropological theory and sensory ethnographic practice. We have developed this approach to specifically target sensory and often unspoken perspectives on self tracking technologies and self-driving cars. During this talk I will discuss empirical examples from our research to demonstrate the approach as well as lessons learned from developing this approach in an interdisciplinary and applied context.

Dr. Michael Guggenheim, Goldsmiths - Univ. of London, UK

Translating the world: Towards a sociology of research media.

Sociology does not imagine itself as a multi-media discipline. Indeed, sociology does not have a theory of research media. It largely operates on the assumption that its primary output medium is text, and it does not have an elaborate theory how the world is turned into texts. Because of this assumption, all other senses and media become othered, as in need of a special justification. To move away from such unequal treatment of media,  I would like to propose a theory of how the world is turned into research based on the notion of translation, and I would like to move away from asking questions about advantages and disadvantages of specific media, to ask questions of what happens in different translation steps. This assumes that any sociological research project translates across media and that the relevant focus should be on what translation as a practice is doing to the world.