Kathryn Geurts, professor of global studies, collaborated with Sefakor Komabu-Pomeyie, director of intercultural excellence at the University of Vermont's College of Nursing and Health Sciences, to publish an article on African somaesthetics titled “Seselelãme: Aŋlɔ-Eʋe Refractions of an African Somaesthetics.”
African somaesthetics is the study of how people use their bodies to express cultural meaning and knowledge. The article focuses on Aŋlɔ-Eʋe people of southeastern Ghana and a local concept called seselelãme, which translates to “perceive-perceive-at-flesh-inside.”
Based on personal experience and long-term ethnographic research, the study looks at how Aŋlɔ people use movement, gestures, dance, greetings and adornment to understand and interact with the world.
The article argues that to understand Aŋlɔ approaches to somaesthetics, it is important to see how people interact with each other, their environment and the spiritual world.