Burning Tires, Sauerkraut and Dung: The (Classist) Boundaries of an Olfactory Landscape

Abstract

This chapter examines olfactory landscapes and othering practices reflected through the categorization of unpleasant smells in an urban environment, taking place in a middle-class socialist-era large housing estate in Belgrade. The data is drawn from two consecutive methodological steps: an online questionnaire and sensory walks conducted with residents of New Belgrade’s housing estate. Olfactory claims made by middle-class inhabitants of the researched housing estate are divided into three categories referring to a three- stage series of distinctions and othering practices: external Others, internal Others, and double Others. Looking at the intersection of class and race, the chapter argues that olfactory constructions play a significant role in the way collective identities are tacitly (re)produced and puts forward the idea that the production of “otherness” of lower social classes is interwoven with the fabric of the middle-class white body epitomizing civility, culture, modernity, and propriety.