Of sensory infractions and anthropomorphism across Asian urban histories

Abstract

ABSTRACT The paper explores how urban dwellers lived in Asian cities between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and what cultural and/or everyday practices and routines they engaged in. What happens when migrants and their sensory practices move across spatial boundaries? How do urban actors perceive and respond to different sensory practices? Drawing from a range of narrative examples contingent on archival research covering media reports printed in the 1800s and 1900s across Asian countries, I develop an argument on sensory clashes and transgressions by relationally considering mobility, anthropomorphism, and agency within the framework of actor-network theory. Focusing on sensory activities and encounters in a variety of city spaces lend further insights into urban histories and migrant mobilities in colonial periods. Specifically, paying attention to the everyday in the past unveils an interplay of sensory experience, ethnic essentialism, and varied experiences of and claims over space and place. In doing so, the emergence and consequence of sensory-urban diversity are addressed. My two-fold explanation is built upon the close-knitted connection between sensory anthropomorphism and essentialism which arise from perceived sensory infractions identified across Asian urban histories.