An ecology of sensibility

The politics of scents and stigma in Japan

Bibliographic Data

ID2401835
AuthorsJoseph Doyle Hankins (University of California San Diego)
Year2013
Volume13
Issue1-2
Pages49-66
Publication date2013-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnthropological Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1463-4996 • E-ISSN: 1741-2641
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1463499613483397
OpenAlexW2325607615
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited22

The smell of real leather: as you slide on new shoes, or slip into a new car. Luxury. Refinement. Juxtapose this with the person who inappropriately smells of leather, of animal flesh. The nose curls with even the thought: contagion and filth, a different kind of person. These divergent sensibilities of the smell of leather exist alongside each other in contemporary Japan, each requiring a discriminating nose to demarcate sets of smell and sets of people. Set against this backdrop of aromatic bivalency, this paper examines how smell and the capacity for olfaction become key elements in the identification of stigma in Japan. I explore the ecology of interrelating sensibilities that compose the politics of stigma. The Buraku people have historically been marginalized in Japan because of associations with stigmatized industries such as leather and meat production. Since the 1970s, the groundwork for asserting such associations has been dramatically reconfigured. This paper focuses on the changing practices by which such attribution occurs, the demands these practices make on capacities for olfaction and the qualities of scent, and the role ceded to private detectives as purveyors of evidence

Aesthetics · Art · Biology · Casual · Environmental ethics · Political science · Politics · Sensibility · Sociology · Stigma · Stigma (botany · Ecology · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Psychology

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