Metropolis. Sensory Ethnography Paths in the City of Differences

Abstract

The chapter looks at the “city of differences” as at places where people increasingly live together in a radical condition of pluralism, the only element that they have in common being their presence in the space. The reference theoretical horizon is the one that looks at the everyday aspects of multiculturalism, observing the diversity experience in some specific places and paying attention to the conditions that generate openness, without denying those that lead to intolerance. Daily multiculturalism prefigures both an empirical investigation field and a methodological positioning capable of looking into the “fine grain” of the territories, through ethnographic research. Within this line of studies, we focus on how “being together” in contemporary cities is also a body exercise, a habit (and indifference) to sounds, smells, different skin colours, heterogeneous way of understanding what is proximity or distance. The perception of diversity, as well as everyday racism, derive also from multisensory experiences. The essay focuses on the role of multisensory perception in urban cohabitations: a research horizon still little explored outside sociological and ethnographic research, but which should be considered in observing, describing, designing and planning the spaces of the contemporary city.