Dr. Kelvin E.Y. Low is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, National University of Singapore. He also serves as the President of the thematic group, TG07 Senses and Society with the International Sociological Association. His research interests include sensory studies, migration and transnationalism, social memory, and food and foodways. He is author or editor of 6 books, with the most recent being Sensory Anthropology: Culture and Experience in Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2023). His journal articles have appeared in Pacific Affairs, Ethnic and Racial Studies, The Sociological Review and Journal of Historical Sociology, among others. He is presently working on a monograph about Nepalese Gurkha families and their migratory lifeworlds in the contexts of Singapore, Nepal, Hong Kong, and the UK. 

Drawing from his latest book on Sensory Anthropology: Culture and Experience in Asia (2023), this keynote documents and analyses how the senses in everyday life manifest in historical and contemporary contexts across Asian communities and cultures. It deliberates upon how social actors and institutions employ and accord meanings to the senses which can be located in the fabric of everyday life experiences, spanning different social arrangements and interactions in such domains as religious life, foodways, linguistics, and colonial encounters. The keynote also focuses on how the sensory practices stemming from different parts of Asia are marshalled as sources of sociocultural theorising as a response to and continuation of extant works on sensory cultures in the West and beyond. Broadly, the talk aims to locate the meaningfulness of sensory experiences by bridging selves, community, social institutions, and varied cultural forms.