Introduction: Visual Hegemony and Sensory Hierarchy

Sociological research rests on the implicit yet powerful assumption that valid knowledge is produced only through what can be seen, recorded, and written down. Observation, written recording and transcription form the backbone of methodological training in disciplines across the social sciences. These practices appear even commonsensical – yet, they are not without their own history; nor are they without their politics. Sociological research methods have historically privileged vision and text as the primary and most legitimate modes of knowledge production. This privileging has produced what I call a sensory hierarchy, wherein the observed reality and the written word are treated as epistemologically superior to other sensory modalities such as the sounds we hear, the feel of touch, and the sense of smell. These senses are often relegated to the margins. They are acknowledged but seldom centred; noted, but rarely theorised.

To conceptualise this problem, I develop the idea of visual hegemony, by which I mean the taken-for-granted dominance of sight as the most credible source of knowledge. I treat visual hegemony not simply as a methodological preference, but rather as a historically produced epistemic condition that structures what counts as evidence, rigour, and truth in sociological research. This article, then, situates visual hegemony within two key historical formations in the Indian context: colonial regimes of visibility and caste-based sensory regulation. It argues that the privileging of sight is not incidental, but deeply entangled with structures of power. I do not attempt to displace established methodologies in the social sciences or question their worth or value. Rather, this article addresses what they miss – most methods currently in use are beyond reach to visually challenged researchers, and are thus, perhaps unbeknownst to them, complicit in the ableist tendencies of carrying out sociological research.

Caste and the Regulation of the Senses

Caste operates not only as a social hierarchy, but as a sensory regime. Untouchability regulates touch, proximity, and even perception itself. As Sundar Sarukkai argues in his chapter Phenomenology of Untouchability, untouchability “transforms touch into a site of pollution and extends this logic to entire communities” (Guru and Sarukkai, 2024). The privileging of sight in research, which is associated with distance and thus detachment, may, however, inadvertently reproduce this very logic by avoiding forms of engagement that require proximity and embodiment. This is especially true in the context of qualitative research, where deep and personal engagement by the researcher is required in the doing of the research.

In theorising and researching caste, then, is it not important to pay attention to the feelings of those who face caste-based discrimination, those feelings that they cannot put into words? The tears, the pain, the humiliation which one can only sense, but not see? The question I ask is also this: Is our research morally sensitive enough to consider what we cannot see as valid knowledge? Can sociologists study what cannot be put into words, yet is clear as daylight when expressed through touch, through tears, through pain, through sound? In other words, is sociological research actually sensitive to capturing how people really feel and what they are going through, as opposed to what they tell us through words (often laced with social desirability bias)? While the present article concedes that existing methods have stood the test of time, it submits that they are not enough to paint an accurate picture of lived experience.

Towards Reflexive Sensory Methodologies in the Social Sciences

A reflexive sensory methodology requires recognising the sensory assumptions embedded in research practices. Such an approach aligns with calls for sensuous scholarship (Vannini et al., 2014) and with phenomenological insights into embodied perception. It also requires acknowledging how epistemic privileges are reproduced, in addition to cultural, social and economic ones. The privileging of distance within research also becomes important here. Vision allows the researcher to observe from afar. It creates a separation between the observer and the observed. Other senses, especially touch, require closeness and mutual presence.

This becomes especially significant in the Indian context. As Sundar Sarukkai has argued, untouchability is not only a social practice but also a sensory order – it regulates proximity, bodily contact, and everyday forms of social intercourse and interaction (Guru and Sarukkai, 2024). Touch becomes associated with danger and pollution. Distance, by contrast, becomes associated with purity and control. Seen in this light, the detached observation of sociological research begins to look less neutral than it first appears.

Visual hegemony is a deeply embedded feature of sociological research, rooted in historical formations of power and embodied practices of perception. By privileging sight and text, research risks reproducing sensory hierarchies that marginalise other forms of knowledge. To challenge visual hegemony, then, is not simply to decoratively include more sensory techniques within research – it is to question the deeper assumptions about what counts as knowledge in the first place. Why is distance treated as objective? Why is writing treated as more rigorous than embodied experience? And why are some sensory forms considered more legitimate than others?  As existing scholarship has pointed out:

“The promise of sonic urban ethnography lies in its ability to interrupt the predominant focus on text and the visual by developing expanded practices of listening for alternative ways of knowing and engaging with the urban.” (Aceska et al., 2024).

Here, methods such as sonic ethnography, multimodal documentation and allied sensory methods are a valuable counter-strategy to both visual hegemony and sensory hierarchy. Such approaches may also open up less ableist and more equitable forms of knowledge production by establishing that valid sociological insights do not necessarily have to depend on visual and textual documentation. Moving beyond the gaze, then, requires not abandoning vision, but situating it within a broader sensory framework – one that is reflexive, embodied, and attentive to power.       

References:

Aceska, A., Doughty, K., Tiryaki, M. E., Robinson, K., Tisnikar, E., & Xu, F. (2024). Doing sonic urban ethnography: Voices from Shanghai, Berlin and London. Urban Studies, 61(10), 1951–1967.

Guru, G., & Sarukkai, S. (2024). The Cracked Mirror: An Indian Debate on Experience and Theory. Oxford University Press. 

Vannini, P., Waskul, D., & Gottschalk, S. (2014). The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture: A Sociology of the Senses. Routledge. 

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Abhijay Rambabu is currently pursuing his Integrated M.A. in Sociology from the University of Hyderabad, of which he is in his final year. He regularly writes for platforms including Feminism in India, The Ambedkarian Chronicle and Doing Sociology.