An Interrogation of Sensory Anthropology of and in Japan

Sensory anthropology has quickly become a dynamic and expansive field of contemporary scholarship, with ethnographers increasingly interested in diverse sensory cosmologies as indicative of a "sensory turn" in anthropology. However, there has also been a tendency for these scholars to work in a linguistic silo, and overlook the potential contributions of local knowledge and scholarship. In this article, we begin to address this gap by bringing Japanese and English language scholarship on the senses in Japan into conversation to interrogate linguistic and cultural divides. Critical examination of these intertwined academic traditions not only provides new intellectual resources, it challenges assumed categories of analysis and deepens our understanding of cultural sensory formations.