Perceiving the Environment in the Papuan Highlands: Reflections on the Ideas of Direct Perception and Attunement

Tim Ingold has criticised anthropologists for their disregard of direct perception: the idea that people can find meaning in an environment without recourse to signs and symbols. More recently he has complemented his understanding of direct perception: perception is not only concerned with surveying objects present that provide affordances for action; it is simultaneously about a presence and awareness in the very instant of perceptual realisation, what Ingold refers to as attunement. In contrast, this article argues direct perception as well as attunement provides a limited means of describing and understanding the perceptions and actions of people in their social, environmental and cosmological contexts. What is not clarified by the notions of direct perception and attunement is the issue of intention. Why does a person or persons select and act on some affordances and attunements instead of others? This argument is made with reference to ethnography from the Fuyuge people of Papua New Guinea.