Whiffs of home. Ethnographic comparison in a collaborative research study across European cities
Peer reviewed, Journal article
Published version
Date
2019Metadata
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Original version
10.3240/94694Abstract
This article discusses how a process of ethnographic comparison has taken
place in a project dealing with home and migration, with a particular focus on
the social qualities of smell. This project highlights comparative ethnography
across case studies with different social groups of reference and country set-
tings. We have covered five European countries (Italy, Spain, the Netherlands,
Great Britain and Sweden), focusing on urban neighbourhoods and engaging
with economic and forced transnational migrants from South America, South
Asia and the Horn of Africa. We centre on smell as a form of homemaking in
migratory contexts, analysing the tension between the affective dimension of
food smell in domestic environments, as well as the normative dimension of
smell in public spaces. In laying three empirical cases side by side, we reflect
on the evocative and divisive qualities of smell to illustrate how our collabo-
ration impelled a comparative analysis of peculiar ethnographic results that
yielded overarching interpretations.