Embodied Sensemaking and the Intercorporeality of Dialogue

In this paper, we explore collaboration through an embodied sensemaking lens, thereby emphasizing the affective and embodied layers of collaboration as expressed through passion and intimacy, but also discomfort and vulnerability. Building on the work of Diprose (2019) and Merleau-Ponty (1964), which frames dialogue as genuinely sensible, material and corporeal, we focus on the role of rhythm, sound and hesitation in dialogue as we argue for the importance of ‘generous listening’ in the context of collaboration. Empirically, we ‘enact’ our argument through a self-experiment in which we try to “make sense” of our own collaboration process, both in the context of writing this paper, but also along the participation in a workshop series on ‘entangled bodies’. Looking at the broader implications of generous listening in collaboration, we argue that the micro attunement of embodied sensemaking has broader relevance in the context of major societal challenges.