‘More Adequate’ Research: Affect, Sensation, and Thought in Research and Writing

Abstract

This chapter explores how embodied learning and experiential knowledge can become vital methods and methodological engagement in research activity. Embodied learning is the understanding gained through the feeling body as it engages with the processual acts of cognition in the production of meaning. It has the ability to strengthen understanding and enhance conceptual knowledge. Within the context of engaging in research, encountering difference and articulating our findings, embodied knowledge works in support of an ethical understanding of ‘other’ and ‘difference’. Thus, we must first become conscious of our feelings and develop the language that fosters their recognition and articulation. This calls for us to utilise our body sensations plus cognitive insights in a bid to appreciate the affective qualities we are both transmitting and receiving. In navigating and valuing these affect relations we can begin to appreciate the more adequate contextual material which informs our opinions and can shift redundant assumptions. Through this means we can better appreciate the practices, attitudes, processes and things that manifest as data and contribute to our perception. This chapter explores the means through which we ascertain the significance of our experience and highlights ways in which we may expand our understanding beyond the initial and often inadequate encounter?