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Embodiment, emotion and empathy

A phenomenological approach to apprenticeship learning

University of Aberdeen, Scotland, th.gieser{at}abdn.ac.uk

In The Perception of the Environment (2000), Ingold has argued that differences in cultural knowledge are more a matter of variation in embodied skills than in discursive knowledge. These skills develop through the practitioners' engagement with their environment and in situated social relationships. In order to `discover' for themselves what is taken for granted for experienced practitioners, they have to `fine-tune' their perception through observation and imitation. But how do observations and imitations of others' movements actually transfer into shifts in one's own perception? In her book Loving Nature: Towards an Ecology of Emotion (2002), Milton argued that emotion acts as a learning mechanism to filter attention. I propose that when one observes and imitates in a process of learning, one enters into an empathic relationship with a skilled practitioner. Through synchronization of intentions and movements, emotions spread over and change the practitioners' perception accordingly.

Key Words: apprenticeship • embodiment • Emotion • Empathy • knowledge • perception • phenomenology • senses • skill

Anthropological Theory, Vol. 8, No. 3, 299-318 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1463499608093816


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