Coming To Our Senses: Proposal for the Creation of a Multisensory Collaboratory for the Enhancement of Individual and Collective Well-Being

Presentation by David Howes, FRSC, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, Montreal

To offset the growing polarization of society and help avert climate catastrophe, we need to come to our senses and forge a new common sense. We need to “resense the Anthropocene,” cultivate fellow-feeling across diverse divides, and strive for the “redistribution of the sensible.” Accordingly, in this presentation I shall outline a proposal for the creation of a Multisensory Collaboratory for the Enhancement of Individual and Collective Well-Being (MC). The proposed MC seeks to put the practice of sensory ethnography and multi-species ethnography at the service of the design arts (architecture and planning, interior and product design).

The presentation begins with an account of the rise of sense-based inquiry (i.e. sensory ethnography) in the human sciences and then extends its purview to engage with Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence (2022) by the artist and writer James Bridle. Along the way, it challenges the WHO definition of health, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and the 7 principles of Universal Design by advancing a model of Differential Design, attuned to the multiple Umwelts or sensoria (of plants and animals as well as humans) that make up the “planetary sensorium” in their stead. “Demarginalize diversity!” is the banner cry of the MC. Rebalancing the sensorium is vital to the establishment of conditions in which all being(s) may flourish.

David Howes is Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Founding Director of the Centre for Sensory Studies at Concordia University, Montreal as well as an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law at McGill University. He was recently inducted into the Royal Society of Canada.

David Howes holds two degrees in law and four degrees in anthropology. He is a legal anthropologist, a pioneer of the anthropology of the senses, and a leading theorist in the interdisciplinary field of sensory studies. Howes is currently directing one research project called ‘Explorations in Sensory Design’ and another on ‘Sensitive Material: A Preliminary Reconnaissance of the Spiritual, Sensorial and Legal Personality of Indigenous Artifacts.’ Recent books include The Sensory Studies Manifesto (2022), Sensorial Investigations (2023) and Sensorium (2024).

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