Oriented Sensibilities

• In Event: 21081 - Section on Sociology of Body and Embodiment Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 4: Bodies Reimagined

Abstract

This article presents the story of a “typical” morning at Café Falastin—a restaurant in the heart of Santiago Chile owned by Nabi, a migrant from Beit Jala, Palestine— in order to elucidate how power is deployed at the micro-sensory level. Drawing on ethnography working as a server, barista, and cook at the café, I develop the concept of “orienting” to describe the subtle ways people, objects, and places alter the relationship between stimuli and sensation and the iterative processes of constructing and reconstructing sensibilities. I then discuss the question of who has authority to orient sensibilities and in what contexts, showing how power is relational. Drawing on the food-centered narratives of the Palestinian diaspora in Chile, the goal of the article is to offer rich accounts of everyday encounters and to move towards a micro-politics of migration and diaspora.

Author

• Nicholas Bascuñan-Wiley, Stony Brook University