CfP: Embodied Methodologies - A Virtual Workshop

The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus
In association with University of Aberdeen and Goldsmiths, University of London presents
Embodied Methodologies: A Workshop for the Humanities and Social Sciences (Virtual)
on December 6, 2024

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Deadline: SEPTEMBER 1, 2024

In the C20th we have seen the textual turn, the historical turn, the spatial turn, as well as cultural and digital turns signalling a robust search for new epistemologies and associated methodologies. As we confront the age of the Anthropocene and existential crises, alongside deep commitments to unearthing decolonial and human-centred approaches (Wynter, Fanon), this proposal amplifies the call for embodied methodologies. A methodological turn is imminent, developing a new (non-extractive) science of knowledge production, praxis, and indeed of being human.

We wish to contribute to emerging explorations of embodiment - somatic, kinaesthetic and affective impulse and activity -  in relation to methodology in the humanities and social sciences. We wish to consider the kinds of knowledge systems that have been created across the world, outside of dominant hierarchies and categories and the challenges and creative modes they provoke. All methodologies are embodied but the extent to which they admit their embodiment differs by discipline and approach. All of them offer a critique of the Global North’s rationalist and universalist traditions of knowledge production. 

To what extent do methodologies enable human liberation? Affirming Methodologies moves beyond decolonial critique (necessary and important as those critiques are), to centre the subaltern spaces and modes of knowledge that have contributed to global knowledge but not been fully acknowledged (Nakhid, 2023).

This conversation grows out of our interest in sacred ecologies of culture and embodied practice (Alexander 2005; Stanley Niaah 2010; Henriques 2011; Uzor 2020), where we consider the interplay of space, performance, persons, environments natural and cultural, enfolding non-linear histories and spiritualities. Our work on the intersection of a range of cultural practices around sonic technologies, choreography,  poetry and everyday spirituality  and ritual inspires us to ask, ‘what are the methodological implications of this work?’ 

We approach these questions from different disciplinary locations and geographical contexts and believe that cross-disciplinary dialogue is crucial to developing a robust understanding of methodology. In light of the foregoing, we ask the following questions in hope of initiating an open-ended dialogue:

  • What methodological shifts across the humanities and social sciences have we not accounted for? What has been left out? What is to be inscribed? 

  • How can we articulate embodied methodologies? 

  • Who do we have to become in order to do the epistemological work around embodiment?

  • How is the unseen given value or meaning within scholarship?

  • How does attention to the local intersect with attention to the transnational, cosmopolitan or diasporic through embodiment?

  • ‘How should we realise the co-relational poetics-aesthetics of our scientific selves in a world that imagines change, but within which change is difficult?’ (McKittrick 2015:7-8)

We invite expressions of interest for a virtual workshop to consider the above questions. We invite you to consider these questions in the context of your own work and to propose short position papers/presentations of fifteen minutes. Work in progress and exploratory offerings including innovative formats are encouraged!

Topics for papers and other forms, modalities and media of presentations may include but are not limited to:

  • Methodologies focused on space/place

  • Methodologies based on sound

  • Methodologies, cross-cultural contexts and specific environments

  • Theorising the sacred, the invisible, the spiritual 

  • The sacred in everyday life/culture

  • The relationship between autoethnography and embodied methodology

  • The pedagogical implications of embodied methodology

  • Methodologies for social justice, environmental justice

  • Immersive technology and embodiment in a digital age 

  • Embodied vs. disembodied (AI) methods (and their effects)

  • Embodied Pedagogies

  • Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Praxis

  • Centring the Body & Mind - ‘I think  therefore I am’ or ‘I feel therefore I am’?[1]

  • Biodata and Biological Warfare

  • Experimental Ethnography

Proposals for presentations should include an abstract and the following information: name of author/authors; email address/es; name of associated institution; and keywords of presentation.

We encourage presentations of a variety of modes, including: sound, energy, movement and other artistic responses. For panel proposals, please include one abstract for each presenter and a panel abstract. Abstracts for individual or panel presentations of no more than 250 words supported by a short biography no longer than 150 words, should be submitted to the organising team for international peer review. 

Proposals must be emailed to reggae.studies[at]uwimona.edu[dot]jm with subject ‘Embodied Methodologies 2024’.

THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS AND OTHER PROPOSAL FORMATS IS SEPTEMBER 1, 2024

Contact the Embodied Methodologies 2024 team with queries at:
Institute of Caribbean Studies & Reggae Studies Unit
University of the West Indies, Mona Campus
Kingston 7, Jamaica. 
Email: reggae.studies[at]uwimona.edu[dot]jm
Tel: 1 (876) 977 - 1951 Fax: 1 (876) 977-3430


[1] Or, as Audre Lorde writes, ‘I feel, therefore I can be free’ (‘Poetry is Not a Luxury’ in Sister Outsider. 2007. London: Penguin, p. 27)

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