One foot in the cave - a sensorial adventure of a first-time caver

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the sensory dimensions of a first-time caver. As part of my doctoral research within the topic of the senses in sporting performance, this is an attempt to investigate how the senses may be evoked, articulated and made sense of. The title is worded to reflect my unfamiliarity with caving; one foot in the cave which could just as easily have been one foot in the senses. This is but one foot and hopefully more feet will follow. Having spent the past few months immersed within the sensory literature of prominent anthropologists and the embodiment linkages with phenomenology I have
finally begun to wrangle with the issue of how do I collect sense data? This paper is one step in that direction, detailing our efforts to capture senselanguage data (you can’t capture senses any more than sensations – only reports of these feelings – adrenaline traces are traces of adrenaline, not feelings of adrenaline) and thereafter to use a structured method for data
interpretation; the ‘body-anchored interview’, after Stelter (2010). The paper concludes that whilst it is a foot that has been placed carefully and intentionally, there being a desired direction in mind for the research, detours may be taken, detours which may not always be a nuisance and may lead to new discoveries.