Touch

DAVID HOWES
Concordia University, Canada

Touch is a complex sense. While mainly identified with physical contact, it can also
include sensations of pleasure, pain, temperature, and movement, to mention but a few
(Classen 2005a; Garrington 2016). It is experienced both externally (pricking a finger)
and internally (feeling one’s heart beating). While highly complex in itself, it is also
imbricated in the other senses: for example, hearing and feeling bleed into one another
(Connor 2004), and even vision depends on eye movements. Precisely because it is so
foundational to existence, it is typically taken for granted, and, particularly in Western
traditions, denigrated on account of its association with the “animal” life of the body and
classification as one of the “lower” senses. “In the sensory scale of ‘races’ created by the
[nineteenth-century] natural historian Lorenz Oken, the ‘civilized’ European ‘eye-man,’
who focused on the visual world, was positioned at the top and the African ‘skin-man,’
who used touch as his primary sensory modality, at the bottom” (Classen 2012, xii). The
first task of the anthropology of touch is to disrupt such stereotypes and come to recog-
nize the extent to which “tactile values shape the sensibility and sociality of a culture”
(Classen 2012, xvii)—all cultures, not just Oken’s “African.”
The anthropological record is replete with accounts of “ways of touching” or hap-
tic and kinaesthetic techniques that often confound both commonsense and scientific
understandings of the nature and scope of touch. Consider the assumption that touch
is a proximity sense in contrast to the distance senses of sight and hearing. Among the
Wet’suwet’en of British Columbia, touch does not end at the perimeters of the body. A
Wet’suwet’en chief testifying at a land claims hearing observed: “If you know the terri-
tory well, it is like your own skin. Sometimes you can feel the animals moving on your
body as they are on the land, the fish swimming in your bloodstream … If you know
the territory well enough, you can feel the animals” (cited in Mills 2005, 3).
This understanding of landscape as skinscape is also found among the Cashinahua
of Peru. They distinguish between several forms of sentience, including skin knowl-
edge, hand knowledge, ear knowledge, and eye knowledge while also insisting that “the
whole body knows.” Skin knowledge is a form of spatial awareness acquired through
the skin—that is, through the feel of the forest, the wind, the rain, and the sun. It
is what enables the Cashinahua to navigate the environment of the jungle and locate
prey. To capture or kill an animal, a man uses his skill with bow and arrow, which is
referred to as “hand knowedge.” (Hand knowledge is divided by gender: a woman’s
hand knowledge has to do with weaving and preparing food.) Sight is not implicated in
hunting: the role of the eye spirit is to acquire knowledge of the invisible spirit world,
with the aid of hallucinogens. The Cashinahua thus entertain a rather different parti-
tion of the sensorium from that of Euro-Americans. Euro-American subjects are more
The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Edited by Hilary Callan.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2178
2 T O U CH

accustomed to visualizing the landscape through the medium of a map than feeling it
as an extension of their skin, and they tend to think that taking aim involves training
the eye rather than drawing on knowledge embedded in the muscles and skin (Howes
2005).
In many cultures, what in the West would be classified as mental telepathy is under-
stood instead as touch at a distance. Every involuntary muscle twitch is interpreted as
announcing the arrival of a relative or conveying some information about the relative’s
condition. An Alawa man of Roper River in the Northern Territory of Australia relates
how:
If my right shoulder twitches I know that my father has thought of me. If the convulsion
persists I think that he may be ill.
My left shoulder represents my [maternal uncle] … because that is where he carried me
during the early years of guardianship.
My mother is in my right breast, my thighs belong to my wife, my calves to my broth-
ers and sisters, my right eyelid to my brothers-in-law and the left eyelid to my cousins.
(Waipuldanya 1970, 121)

Physical anatomy and social anatomy are one. The notion of touch at a distance seems
metaphysical but is actually quite sensible, given the close-knit nature of societies such
as that of the Alawa. Significantly, social divisions are referred to as “skins.” “What is
your skin?” an Alawa will ask of a stranger, and the answer will enable the Alawa to
immediately place the stranger in the local kinship system.
Consider next the commonsense assumption that touch is a surface sense, confined
to registering the outer features of other persons and things in the environment. This
assumption is belied by the anthropological evidence pointing to the degree to which
the power of touch is harnessed and refined across various medical traditions. In
the South Asian humoral medical tradition known as Siddha medicine, physicians
are trained to detect six pulses—three on the left wrist, three on the right—which
correspond to the three humors. Each pulse vibrates at one of three different rates,
depending on the balance of the humors. Diagnosis unfolds in three stages: in the
“gross sensory” stage, the patient’s pulse actively throbs against the physician’s passive
fingertips; at the “inner” (or “contrapuntal”) stage, the physician senses the pulse in his
or her own fingertips at the same time as he or she discerns the patient’s pulse; in the
third phase, “equipoise,” the physician modulates his or her own pulse so it becomes
concordant and confluent with the patient’s pulse. The physician is therefore able to
feel all of the same symptoms as the patient and comes to know the patient’s condition
firsthand, as it were (Daniel 1991).
Pulse reading was also a cardinal diagnostic tool of early Western medicine, requiring
a high degree of tactile sensitivity on the part of the physician. The second-century ce
Roman physician Galen was renowned for his expertise in this domain, and his treatise
on the subject (De Pulsibus [On Pulse]) provided instruction for generations of doctors
down to the invention of the sphygmograph, which substituted visual readings for felt
ones. Pulse reading in antiquity took into account speed, interval, regularity, rhythm,
strength, and hardness:
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It was recommended that the physician use four fingers to take the pulse because the
location of the ailment could be distinguished according to which finger felt the beat
most strongly: if the forefinger, then the problem lay in the head; if the middle finger,
the stomach was at fault; if the ring finger, the intestines, and if the little finger, the feet.
(Howes and Classen 2014, 39)

While Galen’s technique stopped short of generating the degree of empathy with the
patient’s condition that Siddha pulse reading produces, it nevertheless enshrined the
hand as “the perfect instrument” for gauging interior states. This valorization prompted
many strident critiques of the technologization of medical perception with the inven-
tion of the sphygmometer, and other instruments such as the thermometer and stetho-
scope, all of which foregrounded the visualization of bodily interiors.
Research in the history of the senses has revealed many other profound shifts in the
valence or degree of cultural elaboration of the various senses (see Howes and Classen
2014). The invention of writing and a fortiori the printing press are commonly cited
as technologies that have had a profound impact on the structure of the sensorium,
substituting “an eye for an ear” in Marshall McLuhan’s ([1964] 1994) well-known
phrase. While true in broad outline, the “Great Divide” theory of oral versus literate
societies (and mentalities) is often contradicted by careful ethnographic observation.
For example, among the Anlo-Ewe of Ghana, the word for “to hear” (nusese) is used
to denote “sensing” (or “experiencing”) generally, as well as “understanding” (Geurts
2002, 47–49). This might be taken to suggest that Anlo-Ewe culture has an aural
bias, as befits an “oral society.” However, Anlo-Ewe ethnographer Kathryn Geurts was
impressed by the extent to which the interoceptive senses (proprioception, balance, and
kinaesthesia) were equally, if not more, developed. In the Anlo-Ewe imagination, the
fetus is pictured on its “seat” (i.e., the placenta) in the womb already practicing the art of
balance, and newborns’ limbs are massaged continuously in order to inculcate supple-
ness of body and mind. Being able to stand upright and move on two legs is considered
the hallmark of humanity by the Anlo-Ewe. Their language contains over fifty terms for
different “kinaesthetic styles.” Each of these ways of walking is held to be expressive of a
person’s moral character: for instance, an individual may stride like a lion (kadzakadza)
or zigzag as if drunk (lugulugu) (Geurts 2002, 72–84). Plainly, the Anlo-Ewe are keenly
attuned to the body in motion, and their sensitivity to bodily movement is further
refracted in the belief that loss of hearing is “the most grave impairment of sensory
perception because with this loss would come a disruption to their sense of balance,”
and without balance they could not move (Geurts 2002, 50). Thus, hearing and balance
are the twin pillars of the Anlo-Ewe sensory model. The Anlo-Ewe case underscores
the importance of taking a relational approach to the study of the sensorium.
“How people touch—or don’t touch—says a great deal about the nature of a particular
society,” writes Constance Classen. “In Japan, for example, the artistic dimensions of
touch are expressed in such crafts as ceramics and carving. When it comes to social
touching, however, a polite bow is preferred to a handshake. Communal activities, such
as calisthenics and public bathing, provide a way for the Japanese to feel united without
directly touching each other” (Classen 2016, 32). Thus, touch mediates social identities
and actions as well as the physical sense of being in the world (Finnegan 2014).
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Attending to the regulation of touch can yield many important insights into the foun-
dational structures of society, self, and cosmos. A case in point is the “thermal cosmolo-
gy” of the Tzotzil of the Chiapas highlands of Mexico. Celestial bodies and the cardinal
directions of the universe are referenced in terms of temperature: for example, the sun
is “Our Father Heat,” the east is the direction of “emergent heat,” and the west is the
direction of “waning heat.” The gradation of social roles is mapped in terms of temper-
ature, with senior men (who have important ritual functions) being considered hottest
and women (particularly women in childbirth) considered coolest. Ritual agents, such
as tortillas, candles, and alcohol, are all valorized for the heat that goes into their pro-
duction or that they produce over any other sensory quality (Classen 2005b).
Gallace and Spence (2014) ask: What is the future of touch in our increasingly
technologized society? That future might seem bright in view of the proliferation of
so-called touch technologies, such as the iPod Touch and other “haptic interfaces.” But
such devices actually enclose all of their content behind a smooth pane of glass, and such
content is not addressed to the fingertips anyway but to the eyes and ears. Of course,
there are numerous “add-ons” being developed, such as pressure (force feedback) and
temperature (Howes and Salter 2015), but the greatest challenge will be to conserve and
cultivate an infratechnological awareness of the power of touch in order for these tech-
nologizations to make any sense. Perhaps the most promising development has been the
revalorization of touch in the context of museum display (Candlin 2010; Classen 2017).
The shift from “hands-off” to “hands-on” policies has been shown to have benefits
both for cognition and well-being (Chatterjee 2008; Classen 2005a; Gadoua 2015).

SEE ALSO: Caste; French Association of Ethnology and Anthropology / Associa-

tion Française d’Ethnologie et d’Anthropologie (AFEA); House Societies; Material
Culture; Medical Science and Technological Studies; Modes of Communication in
Cross-Cultural Contexts; Sense of Place; Senses, Anthropology of; Tactility; Techniques
of the Body; Texture

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

Candlin, Fiona. 2010. Art, Museums and Touch. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Chatterjee, Helen, ed. 2008. Touch in Museums: Policy and Practice in Object Handling. London:
Bloomsbury.
Classen, Constance, ed. 2005a. The Book of Touch. Oxford: Berg.
Classen, Constance. 2005b. “McLuhan in the Rainforest.” In Empire of the Senses: The Sensual
Culture Reader, edited by David Howes, 147–63. Oxford: Berg.
Classen, Constance. 2012. The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch. Champaign: University
of Illinois Press.
Classen, Constance. 2016. “Die Hand Geben, Das Reicht Nicht [Shaking Hands Is Not Enough].”
ZEIT Wissen (February–March): 32–34.
Classen, Constance. 2017. The Museum of the Senses: Experiencing Art and Collections. London:
Bloomsbury.
Connor, Steven. 2004. “Edison’s Teeth: Touching Hearing.” In Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound,
Listening and Modernity, edited by Veit Erlmann, 153–172. Oxford: Berg.
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Daniel, Valentine. 1991. “The Pulse as Icon in Siddha Medicine.” In The Varieties of Sensory Expe-
rience, edited by David Howes, 100–110. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Finnegan, Ruth. 2014. Communicating: The Multiple Modes of Human Interconnection. 2nd ed.
London: Routledge.
Gadoua, Marie-Pierre. 2015. “Making Sense through Touch: Handling Collections with Inuit
Elders at the McCord Museum.” The Senses & Society 9 (3): 323–41.
Gallace, Alberto, and Charles Spence. 2014. In Touch with the Future: The Sense of Touch from
Cognitive Neuroscience to Virtual Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Garrington, Abbie, ed. 2016. The Haptic Reader. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Geurts, Kathryn Lynn. 2002. Culture and the Senses: Bodily Ways of Knowing in an African Com-
munity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Howes, David. 2005. “Skinscapes.” In The Book of Touch, edited by Constance Classen, 27–39.
Oxford: Berg.
Howes, David, and Constance Classen. 2014. Ways of Sensing: Understanding the Senses in Soci-
ety. London: Bloomsbury.
Howes, David, and Chris Salter. 2015. “Mediations of Sensation: Designing Performative
Sensory Environments.” NMC Media-N 11 (3). Accessed February 18, 2017, http://median.
newmediacaucus.org/research-creation-explorations/mediations-of-sensation-designing-
performative-sensory-environments.
McLuhan, Marshall. (1964) 1994. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Mills, Antonia, ed. 2005. “Hang Onto These Words”: Johnny David’s Delgamuukw Evidence.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Waipuldanya with Charles Lockwood. 1970. I, the Aboriginal. Cleveland, OH: World Publishing
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