ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the model of embodied methodology based on attunement. The term attunement can be defined as the capacity to sense difference. The chapter develops two ways of becoming attuned through the body in terms of vibration and tone. It draws upon empirical vignettes from everyday situations that regularly form the basis of social science research and shows how these concepts is used to understand and become attuned to complex embodied practices. The chapter describes how the concept of attunement and the vocabulary developed can be helpful to those in the Social Sciences and Humanities interested in cultivating embodied methodologies and methods. Developing new units of sense that cross between the human and nonhuman, such as vibration, encourages researchers to focus on the points of intersection where bodies and objects meet in ways that do not reduce encounters to brute physical or causal interactions. Becoming attuned to a situation requires a turn away from focusing on specific sensory faculties.