ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses our visceral body as a means to understand the lives of others. 'Visceral' mean our breathing, acting, moving, feeling, seeing, hearing and thinking body. If anthropology is about understanding what it is to be human, in its myriad variations yet always mediated through our bodies, then we are fortunate to have the perfect instrument with which to study this. Anthropology is not an exercise in mere data gathering, nor in recording, mapping or plotting behaviour. It is about understanding life. The chapter also discusses anthropology as a discipline that allows for freedom, time, experience and imagination in its methods, all of which are necessary and invaluable to get to what it seeks to comprehend. Once a Korper has become a Leib, writes Edward Casey, 'more than merely punctiform positioning in empty space, is at stake'.
