Abstract

Most arguments for a rediscovery of the body and the senses hinge on a critique of “visualism” in our globalized, technified society. This approach has led to a lack of actual research on the processes of visual “enskillment.” Providing a comprehensive spectrum of case studies in relevant contexts, this volume raises the issue of the rehabilitation of vision and contextualizes vision in the contemporary debate on the construction of local knowledge vs. the hegemony of the socio-technical network. By maintaining an ethnographic approach, the book provides practical examples that are both accessible to undergraduate students and informative for an academic audience.

Cristina Grasseni is a Professor of Anthropology at Leiden University (the Netherlands).

“I found the volume to be consistently stimulating and was excited by a new visual anthropology dwelling not in the image but in how people actually look and see…and important and timely volume that does much to further our understanding of vision. It will be of great interest to researchers and students concerned with studies of sensory perceptions.”  ·  Social Anthropology