ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I combine scholarship on the senses, sensory ethnography, and hypermodernism to present several arguments about sensory degradation, somatic labor, and the importance of a critical sensory ethnography for the present moment. The first section discusses three main sources of sensory degradation (confusion, acceleration, and interactions with digital devices). The second section reviews key innovations and challenges of sensory ethnography. The third section proposes and illustrates the concept of somatic labor and suggests that it can serve as a lens that could inform critical sensory ethnographic projects. The concluding section suggests some research topics for critical sensory ethnographic projects and discusses their relevance for the present moment.
