C-MUS Seminar: Body Sensing – conceptualizing and mapping diverse human sensing on the move

Body Sensing – conceptualizing and mapping diverse human sensing on the move

C-MUS Seminar: Friday May 12, 2023, 09:00-12:00, Rendsburggade 14, 9000 Aalborg, room 2.449
 

This interdisciplinary seminar provides a forum to discuss the role, effects, and future implications of body sensing in urban and rural areas. The intention is to share recent research and present theorizations and methodologies within fields working with sensory geographies of people on-the-move. Special attention will be given to users with sensory detriments (how does deaf subjects experience and navigate the world? What role does technology play in mediating this relationship? How does neuro-divergent citizens navigate urban environments?). Through these discussions we will visit notions such as ‘cities of difference’, ‘mobility justice’ and ‘inclusive city design’. With diversity and inclusion in mind, the session explores the potential fertile research overlaps between CMUS/SitMoB, TCS (AAU) and the MRFN (UK) on body sensing and mobilities thinking, by engaging in discussions about body normativity, universal design, mapping and tracking technologies, multisensorial perception, power, and social exclusion in mobility contexts.

Program

09:00-09:15 Welcome (Ole B. Jensen, C-MUS/SitMoB) and short round of introduction around the table (all)

09:15-10:00 (incl. Q&A time) The Future of Deaf Tourism Studies (Sharon Wilson, Martin Trandberg Jensen, and Donna Chambers)

The opening presentation draws on research from Northumbria University (UK) in collaboration with colleagues from Aalborg University in Copenhagen on deaf travel (Jensen, M.T., Chambers, D., Wilson, S. (2023). The Future of Deaf Tourism Studies: An Interdisciplinary Research Agenda. Annals of Tourism Research). This work proposes a research agenda for future research predicated on understanding deafness across time and space in travel contexts. The presentation calls for a more nuanced, interdisciplinary and critical approach to empirically explore the multiplicity of sensory capabilities exercised in tourism as well as everyday mobility practices. In doing so, the presentation also touches upon the role of innovative technologies, such as the cochlear implant, and asks what social, cultural, and emotional implications come from carrying/not carrying an implant. This opens a (post)phenomenological perspective through which we speculate upon the future of deaf travel in a world increasingly permeated by technology and digital infrastructures. The presentation also identifies new innovative methods to further understand the role of sound, and by extension deafness within tourism studies and beyond. Finally, as the authors of this paper are all hearing subjects, we query whether it is possible, or desirable, for hearing subjects to articulate a (post)phenomenology of deaf tourism, ending on the important question: To what extent are hearing researchers complicit in the silencing and objectification of deaf subjects?

Martin Trandberg Jensen holds a PhD Tourism, Aalborg University, Denmark (A.C. Meyers Vaenge 15, 2450, Copenhagen with his research addresses topics related to the sociology of mobilities, and the multisensory geographies and everyday practices of tourism. Donna Chambers, Professor, Department of Arts, Northumbria University, specialises in critical tourism research. Sharon Wilson is Assistant Professor, Tourism and Events at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University. She adopts experimental methodologies to understand human mobility.

10:00-10:15 Coffee break

10:15-10:45 (incl. Q&A time) Stories of spaces and bodies (Tenna Doktor Olsen Tvedebrink)

This presentation draws on the paper “Stories of structures, spaces and bodies: towards a tectonics of well-being” (Tvedebrink, Jelic & Robinson 2022), as well as the ongoing work from two research collaborations: 1) ‘Aged Citizens and (in)accessible Cities’ and 2) ‘GERT & GERDA: Exploring human body diversity’. This work discusses the increasing awareness towards body-environment relationship in architectural scholarship and exemplify the theoretical and methodological considerations on how to capture and document diverse human experiences and emotions through photovoice and body simulations suits.

Tenna is an Associate Professor in Architecture at the Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Aalborg University. She researches human wellbeing, from multi-sensorial and enactive perspectives of architecture.

10:45- 11:30 (incl. Q&A time) Sensorial maps: mapping social identity, affordances, and atmospheres in urban space (Andrea Hernandez Bueno)

This presentation aims to introduce a brainstorm of ideas to uncover the potential aspects of 1) mapping sensorial perception of urban spaces and 2) collecting sensorial mappings over time with the usage of technologies. Some ideas revolve around challenging the understanding of memory of place and cultural memory, exploring new dimensions of the right to the city (democratic city) by for example developing a methodology that creates awareness and train people’s perception of space, thereby helping them to understand and express their experience, and finally developing a vocabulary (Collection of terms and adjectives) and graphical representations (from the design perspective) of the variety and changeability of people’s identities, atmospheres and affordances. The focus of mapping sense takes a situational approach to understand three dimensions that influence human experience when engaging with space, such as the social identity (motivations, routines), atmospheres and affordances.

Andrea is an Assistant Professor in Urban Design at the Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Aalborg University. Her research focusses on passenger experience, human-centric urban and mobilities design and tracking technologies within the urban design and mobilities fields.

11:30-12:00 Roundtable discussion about potential collaboration for the future (all)

12:00 Lunch in town (pay yourself)