Abstract

Virtual Lightning Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL16MFbksDM&index=1&list=LLDp7SqkoJxxKdk6vbUQlELg

Drawing on sociological and anthropological theorizations of the senses and “sensory work,” in this paper we investigate via phenomenology-based auto/ethnography the under-researched sense of thermoception, as the lived sense of temperature. Based on ethnographic and auto-ethnographic research, we examine whether thermoception can be conceptualized as a distinct sense or is more appropriately categorised as a specific modality of touch. Empirically and analytically to highlight the salience of thermoception in everyday life, we draw on findings from four ethnographic and auto-ethnographic projects conducted by the authors as long-standing insider members of their various physical-cultural lifeworlds. The foci of the research projects span the physical cultures of distance running, mixed martial arts, traditionalist Chinese martial arts, and boxing. Emerging from all four studies were salient findings relating to the importance of “temperature work” involving thermoceptive somatic learning, and physical-culturally specific bodily ways of knowing and sense-making. These in turn shape how heat and cold are actually “felt” and experienced in the mind-body.