Sense Make Before Book

“Sense Make Before Book” is an Indo-Caribbean turn of phrase which refers to common sense being more important than book smarts. My sister sent me a post the other day on Instagram of an Trinidadian woman using this phrase, saying it was one of Indo-Caribbean origin. I was interested and asked my mom about it. My mom says that when she was younger my grandpa said it often around their house in Princes Town, Trinidad and Tobago. This adage feels charged thinking about the history of indenture and its effects on the Indo-Caribbean diaspora.

The written word of archival history claiming its authority against the illiterate non-English speaking indentured laborer. History passes through orality, through utterance, through experience, through recollections on the porch, through a sense. Sense is made before book, sense predates the written word. In the absence of a record, we perform. In the absence of an archive, we provide a repertoire.

A book is a sequence of spaces, a book is a series of moments, a grid organizes not just space but also time. How will you read the pages of my movements? The sentences of my gesture? The words of my body?

Reading in a way that doesn’t desire mastery or capture or linearity. A non-teleological reading, a glimpse.

View the full project here: “Sense Make Before Book”