Claire Spackman
Biographic Data
| ID | 93813 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Claire Spackman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Claire |
| FAMILY NAME | Spackman |
| SIGNATURE | SPACKMAN C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Arizona State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6603-7653 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 69 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 20 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Uncharted waters
Potable water reuse, a system treating wastewater to drinking water standards, offers a solution to water scarcity, particularly in arid regions. However, transitions in these traditionally ‘invisible’ infrastructure systems often trigger public concerns, typically framed as a ‘public acceptance’ problem. This study examines public engagement strategies across three potable reuse projects in San Diego, Phoenix, and Scottsdale. Drawing on intervie…
Retooling
Retooling is a ubiquitous practice that mobilizes innovation, maintenance, and repair to address sociotechnical change in times when transformations seem difficult to accomplish. Retooling entails an intentional reorientation of purpose, foregrounds the nonlinear trajectories of technological and scientific shifts, and focuses our attention on the meso level of organizational and collective life. This paper offers a theorization of retooling grou…
Designing to elicit future affective potential
Activating smell’s political potential through smellwalk route design
This text unravels the collaborative design approach we—Ph.D. researcher Lauryn Mannigel, science and technology studies scholar Christy Spackman, cultural geographer Kevin McHugh, and visual artist and Studio Arts instructor Vicky Sabourin—used to create the route of a guided smellwalk for Montréal’s Quartier Concordia, exploring the political potential of smell. Drawing from the perspectives of practicing artists who value smell’s ephemerality,…
Tasting Water at Canal Convergence 2021
Consumer hesitancy around using wastewater as a drinking water source has proved a stumbling block for water reuse projects. When water professionals technologically clean up wastewater, they begin the process of making it “forget” its previous interactions with humans. Current educational and communication approaches used by water utilities, however, “forget” to engage the sociality of tasting. To activate consumers’ sensory experiences—the thin…
Follow the Ferments
Fermented foods/drinks are one of many traditional food preservation practices known to ameliorate flavor and nutritional value and extend shelf life. They are also an essential element in creating a regenerative food system, one that seeks to create conditions that enhance already existing systems rather than just sustaining them. However, many gastronomic, traditional, and heritage foods such as noncommercial fermented products are not eligible…
Embodied rationality
Gendered and Racial Injustices in American Food Systems and Cultures
Multiple factors create food injustices in the United States. They occur in different societal sectors and traverse multiple scales, from the constrained choices of the industrialized food system to legal and corporate structures that replicate entrenched racial and gender inequalities, to cultural expectations around food preparation and consumption. Such injustices further harm already disadvantaged groups, especially women and racial minoritie…
In smell’s shadow
This article examines the politics of smell at the edge of perception. In January 2014, the municipal water supply of Charleston, West Virginia was contaminated by an under-characterized chemical, crude MCHM. Even when instrumental measurements no longer detected the chemical, people continued to smell its licorice-like odor. In a space where nothing was certain, smell became the only indicator of potential harm. Officials responded by commission…
Ordering volatile openings
Odors define many things: plants, foods, people. Although the rise of instrumental flavor and odor analysis techniques from the 1950s to 1980s, largely driven by the food and perfumery industries, allowed scientists unprecedented access to knowledge about the structures and origins of odorific molecules, these techniques and their influence on the social imagination remain relatively unexamined. Working at the intersection of Gender, Food, and Sc…
Sensory labor
The taste of foodstuffs has shaped entire economic systems. Yet many scholars have understood how one tastes as only a matter of aesthetics. New forms of doing work through the senses, associated with twentieth-century industrialized food production, have made it clear that the sensations produced by mouths and noses do more than mark class—they carry economic value. It seems that it is time we attend more closely to this sensory labor and its pl…
Just noticeable
Breathing in the Anthropocene
Thinking at the scale of the Anthropocene highlights the significant burden on all life imposed by the residues of industrialization as well as continued pollution. But it also risks a disconnect between the functioning of planetary atmospheres and the functioning of local airs. In this thought-piece, we consider together the potato chip bag, the asthma inhaler, and climate positive building design as scalar practices of Anthropocene air. By figu…
Formulating citizenship
Sensory politics
Sensory information signaled the acceptability of water for consumption for lay and professional people into the early twentieth century. Yet as the twentieth century progressed, professional efforts to standardize water-testing methods have increasingly excluded aesthetic information, preferring to rely on the objectivity of analytic information. Despite some highly publicized exceptions, consumer complaints remain peripheral to the making and r…
Introduction toAccounting for Taste
Sensory evaluation has been defined as a scientific method used to evoke, measure, analyze and interpret those responses to products as perceived trough the senses of sight, smell, touch, taste, an
Perfumer, chemist, machine
Drawing from published accounts of the use of gas chromatography (GC) in the food industry, found in industry-specific journals, this article examines the role of GC in changing how perfumers and flavorists think about and shape the sense-able world. It shows that the development of a novel twist on GC – the use of an expert's nose as a detecting device directly connected to the exit gasses of the gas chromatograph, rather than an instrumental de…
Children's Attitudes toward Cats on St. Kitts, West Indies
Little is known of the attitudes of Caribbean people toward freeroaming and pet cats, so we conducted a questionnaire survey of primaryschool children aged 5 to 13 years (n = 417, 206 girls and 209 boys, while two questionnaires did not indicate gender) in 23 schools around St. Kitts. Over 50% reported they owned or had owned a cat, and ownership was associated with feelings of happiness and comfort. Children reported 511 reasons for liking cats …
Measured Meals
(2012). Measured Meals: Nutrition in America: By Jessica Mudry. Food, Culture & Society: Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 515-518
A S weet T reat —P ie
(2010). A Sweet Treat—Pie: A Global History by Janet Clarkson. Food, Culture & Society: Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 146-148
Sensory politics
Sensory information signaled the acceptability of water for consumption for lay and professional people into the early twentieth century. Yet as the twentieth century progressed, professional efforts to standardize water-testing methods have increasingly excluded aesthetic information, preferring to rely on the objectivity of analytic information. Despite some highly publicized exceptions, consumer complaints remain peripheral to the making and r…
Introduction toAccounting for Taste
Sensory evaluation has been defined as a scientific method used to evoke, measure, analyze and interpret those responses to products as perceived trough the senses of sight, smell, touch, taste, an
Sensory labor
The taste of foodstuffs has shaped entire economic systems. Yet many scholars have understood how one tastes as only a matter of aesthetics. New forms of doing work through the senses, associated with twentieth-century industrialized food production, have made it clear that the sensations produced by mouths and noses do more than mark class—they carry economic value. It seems that it is time we attend more closely to this sensory labor and its pl…
Perfumer, chemist, machine
Drawing from published accounts of the use of gas chromatography (GC) in the food industry, found in industry-specific journals, this article examines the role of GC in changing how perfumers and flavorists think about and shape the sense-able world. It shows that the development of a novel twist on GC – the use of an expert's nose as a detecting device directly connected to the exit gasses of the gas chromatograph, rather than an instrumental de…
Breathing in the Anthropocene
Thinking at the scale of the Anthropocene highlights the significant burden on all life imposed by the residues of industrialization as well as continued pollution. But it also risks a disconnect between the functioning of planetary atmospheres and the functioning of local airs. In this thought-piece, we consider together the potato chip bag, the asthma inhaler, and climate positive building design as scalar practices of Anthropocene air. By figu…
In smell’s shadow
This article examines the politics of smell at the edge of perception. In January 2014, the municipal water supply of Charleston, West Virginia was contaminated by an under-characterized chemical, crude MCHM. Even when instrumental measurements no longer detected the chemical, people continued to smell its licorice-like odor. In a space where nothing was certain, smell became the only indicator of potential harm. Officials responded by commission…
Just noticeable
Embodied rationality
A S weet T reat —P ie
(2010). A Sweet Treat—Pie: A Global History by Janet Clarkson. Food, Culture & Society: Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 146-148
Measured Meals
(2012). Measured Meals: Nutrition in America: By Jessica Mudry. Food, Culture & Society: Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 515-518
Children's Attitudes toward Cats on St. Kitts, West Indies
Little is known of the attitudes of Caribbean people toward freeroaming and pet cats, so we conducted a questionnaire survey of primaryschool children aged 5 to 13 years (n = 417, 206 girls and 209 boys, while two questionnaires did not indicate gender) in 23 schools around St. Kitts. Over 50% reported they owned or had owned a cat, and ownership was associated with feelings of happiness and comfort. Children reported 511 reasons for liking cats …
Formulating citizenship
Sensory politics
Sensory information signaled the acceptability of water for consumption for lay and professional people into the early twentieth century. Yet as the twentieth century progressed, professional efforts to standardize water-testing methods have increasingly excluded aesthetic information, preferring to rely on the objectivity of analytic information. Despite some highly publicized exceptions, consumer complaints remain peripheral to the making and r…
Introduction toAccounting for Taste
Sensory evaluation has been defined as a scientific method used to evoke, measure, analyze and interpret those responses to products as perceived trough the senses of sight, smell, touch, taste, an
Perfumer, chemist, machine
Drawing from published accounts of the use of gas chromatography (GC) in the food industry, found in industry-specific journals, this article examines the role of GC in changing how perfumers and flavorists think about and shape the sense-able world. It shows that the development of a novel twist on GC – the use of an expert's nose as a detecting device directly connected to the exit gasses of the gas chromatograph, rather than an instrumental de…
Ordering volatile openings
Odors define many things: plants, foods, people. Although the rise of instrumental flavor and odor analysis techniques from the 1950s to 1980s, largely driven by the food and perfumery industries, allowed scientists unprecedented access to knowledge about the structures and origins of odorific molecules, these techniques and their influence on the social imagination remain relatively unexamined. Working at the intersection of Gender, Food, and Sc…
Sensory labor
The taste of foodstuffs has shaped entire economic systems. Yet many scholars have understood how one tastes as only a matter of aesthetics. New forms of doing work through the senses, associated with twentieth-century industrialized food production, have made it clear that the sensations produced by mouths and noses do more than mark class—they carry economic value. It seems that it is time we attend more closely to this sensory labor and its pl…
Just noticeable
Breathing in the Anthropocene
Thinking at the scale of the Anthropocene highlights the significant burden on all life imposed by the residues of industrialization as well as continued pollution. But it also risks a disconnect between the functioning of planetary atmospheres and the functioning of local airs. In this thought-piece, we consider together the potato chip bag, the asthma inhaler, and climate positive building design as scalar practices of Anthropocene air. By figu…
In smell’s shadow
This article examines the politics of smell at the edge of perception. In January 2014, the municipal water supply of Charleston, West Virginia was contaminated by an under-characterized chemical, crude MCHM. Even when instrumental measurements no longer detected the chemical, people continued to smell its licorice-like odor. In a space where nothing was certain, smell became the only indicator of potential harm. Officials responded by commission…
Gendered and Racial Injustices in American Food Systems and Cultures
Multiple factors create food injustices in the United States. They occur in different societal sectors and traverse multiple scales, from the constrained choices of the industrialized food system to legal and corporate structures that replicate entrenched racial and gender inequalities, to cultural expectations around food preparation and consumption. Such injustices further harm already disadvantaged groups, especially women and racial minoritie…
Tasting Water at Canal Convergence 2021
Consumer hesitancy around using wastewater as a drinking water source has proved a stumbling block for water reuse projects. When water professionals technologically clean up wastewater, they begin the process of making it “forget” its previous interactions with humans. Current educational and communication approaches used by water utilities, however, “forget” to engage the sociality of tasting. To activate consumers’ sensory experiences—the thin…
Follow the Ferments
Fermented foods/drinks are one of many traditional food preservation practices known to ameliorate flavor and nutritional value and extend shelf life. They are also an essential element in creating a regenerative food system, one that seeks to create conditions that enhance already existing systems rather than just sustaining them. However, many gastronomic, traditional, and heritage foods such as noncommercial fermented products are not eligible…
Embodied rationality
Activating smell’s political potential through smellwalk route design
This text unravels the collaborative design approach we—Ph.D. researcher Lauryn Mannigel, science and technology studies scholar Christy Spackman, cultural geographer Kevin McHugh, and visual artist and Studio Arts instructor Vicky Sabourin—used to create the route of a guided smellwalk for Montréal’s Quartier Concordia, exploring the political potential of smell. Drawing from the perspectives of practicing artists who value smell’s ephemerality,…
Retooling
Retooling is a ubiquitous practice that mobilizes innovation, maintenance, and repair to address sociotechnical change in times when transformations seem difficult to accomplish. Retooling entails an intentional reorientation of purpose, foregrounds the nonlinear trajectories of technological and scientific shifts, and focuses our attention on the meso level of organizational and collective life. This paper offers a theorization of retooling grou…
Designing to elicit future affective potential
Uncharted waters
Potable water reuse, a system treating wastewater to drinking water standards, offers a solution to water scarcity, particularly in arid regions. However, transitions in these traditionally ‘invisible’ infrastructure systems often trigger public concerns, typically framed as a ‘public acceptance’ problem. This study examines public engagement strategies across three potable reuse projects in San Diego, Phoenix, and Scottsdale. Drawing on intervie…
Political science (10 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Geographies of human-animal interactions (8 works) · Business (7 works) · Culinary Culture and Tourism (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Art (6 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Politics (5 works)