Sensory Contact Zones: Experiences and Encounters

The concept of the ‘contact zone’ (Pratt, 1991) has long served as a critical framework and conceptual space for interrogating the ways in which different groups meet, clash and grapple with one another socially, culturally, spatially and temporally. By extension, contemporary social life is equally characterised by complex, often jarring sensory experiences that structure how we relate to both human and non-human actors in a globalised world. This panel seeks to extend the contact zone paradigm by focusing on what Low has recently termed ‘sensory contact zones’ (2025). The panel aims to examine how sensory experiences and encounters, mediated through smell, sound, touch, taste, sight and other faculties, forge, challenge, transgress or dissolve social boundaries.

How do varied sensory encounters facilitate or disrupt uneven power dynamics, belonging and marginalisation within and between different groups? When diverse bodies and sensorial schemas collide, what affective, emotional and physical responses and outcomes are produced? The panel invites empirical, theoretical, methodological and/or pedagogical contributions that cover diverse topics that include, but are not limited to, the sensory dimensions of borders, migration and displacement; sensory encounters and human-non-human entanglements in urban environments; the role of soundscapes, olfactory regimes and tactile encounters in shaping community belonging; decolonising sensory hierarchies and challenging hegemonic sensory scripts; and sensory transgressions and clashes in both historical and contemporary settings.