An Introduction to Five Methods

This resource was compiled by members of the Wellcome Trust network ‘MedEnv: Intersections of the Medical and Environmental Humanities’ in association with the University of Bristol ‘Senses and Sensations’ research cluster. It has a contribution from our project, showing Rebecka Fleetwood-Smith’s mapping activity in relation to hospitals, and suggesting how you might wish to adapt this activity for your work. We hope that you will find it a useful and exciting introduction to sensory research methods for humanities researchers. We expect that it will be particularly useful for postgraduate researchers, and for those whose work relates to the subjects of health and the environment. We have chosen five quite different, but complementary, methods as an introduction to the varied ways that humanities scholars can engage the senses: whether in a field or in an archive! Some of these you may already know, and others might be new to you. While you might opt to flick straight to the page that interests you, we encourage you to look at them all, as we hope you will find also something unexpected or inspirational in familiar and new methods alike.