Paper short abstract:

Reporting on laboratory ethnography of a team building robotic surgical tools for cochlea implants, this paper explores how multisensory material is rendered sensible - as in both perceptible and understandable - through the socio-material accomplishment of scientific practice.

Paper long abstract:

Cochlea implants are medical devices used to aid the hearing of profoundly deaf people by electrically stimulating the inner ear. The implants are surgically inserted in an operation that can, and often does, further damage the ear. This paper reports ethnographic work conducted with a laboratory focused on developing sensory and robotic tools to improve cochlea implant insertion. It details the laboratory as a multisensory space, and articulates how sensory material is rendered sensible - as in both perceptible and understandable - through the socio-material accomplishment of scientific practice. The paper is attentive to the enactment of a sensory realm achieved through the prioritising and boundary work within that realm. In this understanding, the sensory realm includes sensory forms of diverse types (experiential, symbolic, non-human) that are co-produced with the broader sensory imaginaries that are used to interpret and shape them. Importantly this focus on imaginaries allows for the inclusion of sensory and interpretative input that extends physically and temporally beyond the laboratory buildings. A key theme is the role of technologies as sensitising devices that, as part of broader socio-material constellations, enact specific sensory realms. Extending this, the paper explores the multiple ways in which the rendering of the imperceptible as perceived, and the perceived as imperceptible, is accomplished. The paper also articulates my methodological approach to collecting and analysing ethnographic data on the enactment of a sensory realm.