When activities are physical and actively use the body, relevant information is often difficult to convey using alphabetic text or static images. Instead, mastering physical activities usually requires apprenticeship or hands-on training, which often occurs within a social setting. We know relatively little about the information practices–including creating, seeking, using, storing and sharing information–related to the pursuit of such physical activities.

The embodied, or physical nature of these activities requires some rethinking of key concepts in information behavior research.

My current research focuses on how people use their bodies, senses, and information of various kinds in music practice and performance. I draw on sociological insights related to embodied knowledge and build on existing notions of information practice that understand information activities as embedded and constructed within a particular social context to help explain how bodies create, interact with and express information.

The study of embodied information requires a methodology, such as ethnography, that is interpretivist and acknowledges that sensations and the senses are not biologically universal. Audio recordings, photography, and video photography, despite being imperfect accounts of visual or auditory experiences can nevertheless be used to create representations or documents of experiences and to elicit descriptions of sensations and feelings. Because community meanings of senses are socially constructed and interpreted, ethnography often requires the researcher to participate in the activity to experience sensations first hand.