Scent-orship and Scent-iments on the Scent-ual: the Relational Geographies of Smoke/Smell between Smokers and Non-Smokers in Singapore. (3rd May 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Tan, Qian Hui
• Is Part Of: Senses and society. Volume 11:Number 2(2016)
• Page Start: 177
• Page End: 198
• Publication Date: 2016-05-03
• Subjects: sensory citizenship -- smoking -- smell -- olfaction -- abject embodiment -- sensory relations; Perception -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Art -- Psychological aspects -- Periodicals; Art -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; 302
• DOI: 10.1080/17458927.2016.1190069
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1745-8935

Abstract

Abstract: Building on nascent conceptualizations of a sensory citizenship, I hope to extend the existing scholarship by bringing tobacco research into a productive conversation with emerging debates in sensory studies. Given that the senses mediate mundane social exchanges – I explore how the pungent stench of smoke that lingers on smoking bodies disrupts normative social scripts of being a neutral smelling, civic-minded individual – thus potentially rendering the smoker out of place in many non-smoking public places. By employing qualitative research methods, I investigate how olfactory similarity and difference can have repercussions on how smokers and non-smokers' negotiate their citizenship subjectivities. In this regard, I argue that such divisions of difference that run along sensory lines have become a means of sorting out undesirable citizens from desirable ones as well as those that belong to the broader geo-body of the nation and those who do not.