A curated doorway into research that helps us study sensuality without pretending that one discipline already contains the whole field.
Sensory studies provides an established interdisciplinary home for questions about how sensing is shaped by bodies, culture, history, environments and social practice. The field spans anthropology, sociology, history, geography, philosophy, art, architecture, design, disability studies and related disciplines.
Sensory Studies Research Directory · Sensory studies 2026: a state-of-the-art review
Embodiment research helps distinguish lived bodily experience from a simplistic idea of the body as a container for sensation. It informs questions about body awareness, participation, agency and the relationship between subjective experience and observable indicators.
Experience of Embodiment Scale
Research on sexual pleasure offers useful examples of multidimensional construct development while also showing why sensuality cannot simply be reduced to sexual pleasure.
Amsterdam Sexual Pleasure Inventory · Sexual Pleasure Matters conceptual framework
Work on somatic practice and sensory culture shows that sensing is never merely raw input. Perception is shaped by previous experience, expectation, social practice and cultural meaning.
Somatic Work: Toward a Sociology of the Senses
The library supports the Institute’s working definition of sensuality, Sensuality Taxonomy, Sensual Capacities framework, operationalisation work and research agenda. Sources are included because they illuminate part of the field, not because they necessarily endorse the Institute’s framework.
