Sensitive knowledge through an autoethnography of Contact Improvisation

Employing fieldwork in contact improvisation in Montreal, I will emphasise the sensitive knowledge we can gain from ethnographic methodologies. Based on an excerpt of my ethnographic account, I will highlight the benefits of auto-ethnography. As a social phenomenon, auto-ethnography allows the creation of a space to explore the conventions/taboos regulating touch and the redefinition of intimate boundaries that are shaped under circumstances of narrow proximity. In this research, auto-ethnography discloses aspects of the mindful body, such as the interrelatedness between touch, weight, intention and emotions. Fieldwork experience, by leaving a sensitive memory in the anthropologist?s body, shapes academic writing. Regarding this latter premise, I will show how it gains affect and sensoriality.