The Aroma of Recollection: Olfaction, Nostalgia, and the Shaping of the Sensuous Self

Waskul, Dennis D.; Vannini, Phillip; Wilson, Janelle L.

doi:10.2752/174589309x388546

Cited by 80 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Much has been written about the evocative power of scents and smells (see, for example, Rodaway 1994;Urry 1999;Low 2005;Waskul et al 2009). This was vividly illustrated by how one respondent, who was born in the UK of Dominican parents and repatriated to the island as an adult, described her indirect childhood encounters with Dominica, in which olfactory experience played an important role:…”

Section: What You Smellmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensing the Natural in the Caribbean's Nature Island

Yarde¹

2013

The Senses and Society

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Section: What You Smellmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensing the Natural in the Caribbean's Nature Island

Yarde¹

2013

The Senses and Society

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“…This argument also corresponds to what Waskul et al . have suggested with regard to the process of memory recollection, where ‘the act of recalling is a form of somatic work: a sensual practice actively deployed as a vehicle that individuals use in their efforts to maintain self continuity over time’ (: 17). Ostensibly, there is a sense of perpetuity and development which affect social actors, carrying their past into the present and future by operating upon scent‐sual memory recollections in their discussions of what Classen et al .…”

Section: Framing Olfactive Memories – Emotions Affect and Habitusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Olfactive Frames of Remembering: Theorizing Self, Senses and Society

Low

2013

The Sociological Review

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By analysing sensorial aspects of social memory and emotions, this paper theorizes the social significance of olfaction and other senses towards reconfigurations of self and social interactions through embodied identity work. The research question that this paper addresses is: how is the self perceived through memories that are mediated by smells? Olfactive frames of remembering are employed in order to explicate sensory meta‐narratives including sensory relations (pertaining to familial and other ties), sensory memory, time and space, and sensoryscapes. This article also elucidates upon the various moral, cultural and aesthetic codes that may be discerned in biographical narrations of social actors drawn from narrative interviews. Furthermore, it highlights a need to consider sensorial‐bodily experiences in qualitative inquiry and thereby conceptualize how actors articulate their sense of self, and how they reformulate their experiences and relationships with others vis‐à‐vis emotional discourses of happiness, sadness and nostalgia in the maintenance and continuity of selfhood. The paper therefore contributes to sensuous scholarship by explicating how smells and memories operate in conjunction toward shaping self‐identity and social relations.

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“…Focusing on scent and memory could be useful for future urban studies since smell plays an important role in recollections of place (Porteous, ; ; Rodaway , Waskul et al . ); smell's relationship with memory allows people to traverse space and time. As such, smell can enhance the experience of everyday life in the city by drawing upon or connecting to individual and collective memories and imaginations (see Borer ).…”

Section: Smelling the City Or Smellscapesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Being in the City: The Sociology of Urban Experiences

Borer

2013

Sociology Compass

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Though urban sociologists tend to study the growth and development of cities, there is a venerable yet often marginalized tradition that addresses the embodied experience of urban life. Studies of urban experiences have recently begun to flourish due, in part, to the rise of sensory scholarship. Recognizing the connections between urban experiences and sensory stimulations provides nuanced ways to explore the actions and interactions between individuals and their relationships to and with urban places. Relying on a diverse literature of recent studies that focus on cities as dense sensory environments, this article shows the significance of studying city life at the experiential and sensory levels. First, a few seminal early works are discussed, with specific emphasis on Georg Simmel. Then, each of the five bodily senses and their correlated sensescapes -seescapes, soundscapes, smellscapes, tastescapes, and touchscapes -are presented in order to show individuals and groups use their senses to experience and make sense of the city. The article concludes with a brief discussion of methods and few suggestions to encourage future analyses of the everyday embodied and emplaced practices and interpretations of being in the city.Most urban sociologists -as well as geographers, political scientists, economists, and scholars from equally important fields that contribute to the inter-and trans-disciplinary literature of "urban studies" -tend to study cities with a wide-angle lens, especially those studying globalization, global cities, and transnational urban networks. There is, however, a venerable yet often marginalized tradition that puts the experience of urban life at or near the forefront of analysis. Some of the first sociological studies, as well as literary depictions, of city life focused on the ways that budding industrialized cities affected the social psychological dynamics of urbanites (see Lees 1985;Strauss 1968). Despite a few notable exceptions, the actual experiences of being in the city -at the bodily, sensuous, or existential levels -have often been assumed rather than assessed through careful analysis and interpretation. This lacuna is shrinking; however, in large part because of the studies discussed herein.From the most mundane to the most spectacular, pure and unmediated experiences are difficult, if not impossible, to study empirically (see Davis 1997). One's narrative of their experience is always filtered through cultural expectations and norms of storytelling (Gubrium and Holstein, 2008). This should not halt the quest for understanding experiences in general and urban experience in particular. Stories are not any less real than the raw data of facts. "The factual accuracy of a story is often less important than the purpose of the story or the way that it is used" (Borer 2006b, 187). Fortunately, scholars have pushed forward, developing various ways to study social experiences without reducing them to the cognitive mechanisms and brain functions that can only be detected by MRIs and other sophi...

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The Aroma of Recollection: Olfaction, Nostalgia, and the Shaping of the Sensuous Self

Cited by 80 publications

References 27 publications

Sensing the Natural in the Caribbean's Nature Island

Sensing the Natural in the Caribbean's Nature Island

Olfactive Frames of Remembering: Theorizing Self, Senses and Society

Being in the City: The Sociology of Urban Experiences

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