SarahSenses are profoundly linked to our perception of reality. For example, memories can be powerfully evoked through the sense of smell. Have you experienced this? You are invited to join me on a voyage through qualitative methods and coffee enthusiasm.
Exploring the Senses
This fall, I took a course on research methods, which was much more interesting than one might expect. In addition to traditional methods, our professor covered a wide range of approaches, including sensory ethnography. Our minds were opened to new types of data.
Sensory ethnography matches how it sounds: researchers understand a culture through studying the senses. We learned about this methodology in Doing Sensory Ethnography by Sarah Pink. For example, Pink studied how people judged cleanliness for their laundry or their home. Are your chores linked to a rigid schedule or on the feeling of the floor? Do you wash an item of clothing if it has stains, an unwanted scent, or simply after one use?
Why bother asking about the senses? For one, “Engaging multisensorial communication and analysis can [empower interviewees] by allowing for the use of non-verbal types of communication and knowing… researchers invite participants to gather everything they need in order to communicate about the place they occupy in the world” (79). This reminds me of John Paul Lederach’s elicitive model for cross-cultural training, in which different groups’ “implicit… knowledge about ways of being and doing is a valued resource for creating and sustaining appropriate models of conflict resolution in a given setting” (56). In other words, the researcher or teacher’s frameworks may be valid, but other people’s ways of perceiving the world are also important to understanding their experiences. If you’re hoping to understand or contribute in a new setting, applying your own cultural filters and assuming you know best can be problematic on several levels (Lederach 48, 68). We can take that many directions, but for now let’s bring it back to sensory ethnography. Moving beyond rigid “traditional Western approaches” can broaden learning and foster equity; for example, scholars should consider and respect affective, sensory, and Indigenous ways of knowing.
For the “sensory ethnography” lecture, our professor asked us to bring a favourite scent. Show and tell time! We selected an item to borrow and did freewriting, seeking to describe (and guess) someone else’s scent. Interestingly, in a class of around ten people, about half of us brought some variant of chai. Yum.
What is your favourite smell? There are a few that fit the bill for me, including new books or brochures, the smell of summer rain (petrichor!), or scents reminiscent of someone you love. However, I needed to choose one that was 1) applicable in autumn and singledom and 2) portable. That is how I found myself bringing in a small container of ground coffee beans.
What Does Coffee Mean to Me?
Honestly, I love coffee. As our agency shrinks amid a pandemic, I continue to appreciate the practice of brewing and pouring a cup, in the spirit of “it’s the little things”.
My appreciation of coffee began at age eighteen, but initially only as a tool. Coffee can function as a useful energy booster and a pathway to heightened productivity. Through university and my first work terms, it kept this role, though certainly I enjoyed the taste more over time. Sometimes I associated coffee with weekends or vacationing with family. I tried to manage my caffeine intake, and I appreciated latte art like anyone, but I didn’t consider myself a coffee enthusiast, really.
Moving to Europe bumped my appreciation up to a new level. During my German praktikum, I learned about moka pots and enjoyed afternoon coffee and espresso with my flatmates. Farther afield, I tried cappuccinos in new cities, and as my iPhone battery struggled in France, cafés let me mentally and physically recharge during a hectic day. I suspect it was then that, for me, coffee transitioned from a crutch and small reward to a kind of nostalgic, adventurous retreat. I appreciated it both in and apart from community. An overpriced drink is also a smaller splurge than an overpriced meal, although coincidentally I also realized my appreciation for the “restaurant experience” during TAPIF. Upon returning home (and earning more again) I made it a mission to try a wider range of local restaurants, and it helped me appreciate my city in a new way. I digress.
As I started my master’s, I finally took the plunge of making my own coffee regularly. I liked coffee and espresso drinks enough to keep them in my life, but suddenly I once more had ample flexibility and a limited disposable income. Strangely enough, I liked making coffee at home. No, seriously, why didn’t I try this earlier? It’s slower than instant, but still very doable. Armed with a second-hand French press, favourite mugs, and eventually a bean grinder and milk frother (!!), I had fun figuring out what types of coffee and techniques I enjoyed. Yes, it took more time, but it also cost less overall, and there was something strangely appealing about putting effort into preparing something for consumption. Cause and effect, domesticity, etc. etc. This might seem self-evident (“duh, Sarah”), but for an anti-homebody who avoided cooking whenever possible until the pandemic, this feeling of satisfaction legitimately crossed my mind. Even after plenty of travel and adulting “firsts”, home-brewing my caffeine still felt like a new step of independence.
Back to Show and Tell
More briefly, I told my class that I loved the smell of coffee because it reminded me of energy and motivation, as well as comfort and travel. (Or something to that effect.) I realize that this is also very much my own experience; coffee is crucial to community life in various cultures. It was also fascinating to hear my colleagues’ answers. Some also associated their chosen scent with a beloved place or a person. As mentioned, a surprising number brought in the exquisite scent of chai.
A couple of months later, I was part of a group that used a similar icebreaker question: “Do you prefer coffee or tea?” Unexpectedly, each of us paired the answer with an animated anecdote. Smell, taste, and drink preference specifically seem linked to a set of memories and social or leisure traditions. There are also various levels of commitment – what qualifies someone as a coffee snob? Honestly, I don’t think my knowledge approaches aficionado status, though the discovery that expensive coffee (generally) tastes better has ruined me. I look forward to learning more over time.
What is your favourite smell? What is your favourite hot (or cold) beverage? Finally, how might you otherwise reflect on senses as you understand the world as perceived by yourself and others?
Bonus quote for reflection:
“As our identities are continually completed in relation to place and our ways of embodied knowing and learning, this idea of sensory subjectivity is thus sensitive to the contingency of identity and it is also inextricable from our relationship with our total environment” (Pink 62).
Works Cited
Lederach, John Paul. Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures. Syracuse University Press, 1995.
Pink, Sarah. Doing Sensory Ethnography, 2nd edition. Sage, 2015.