Scents of care: Multispecies relations in Pakistan's heatwave

Abstract

This article examines how odour, intensified by heat, shapes the sensory aspects of social and multispecies relations in Pakistan. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Kasur's tanneries and Lahore's animal shelters during a period of record-breaking heat, it analyses how smell structures inclusion and exclusion, mediates encounters with humans and animals, and opens alternative modes of ethnographic engagement. While sensory anthropology has long highlighted the sociocultural significance of olfaction through concepts such as ‘aromascape’ and the ‘anthropology of sensation’, this article foregrounds odour as both an analytic and a praxis. By tracing how activists, workers, animals, and the ethnographer inhabit dense scentscapes, it shows that the intersection of extreme heat and malodour reveals new understanding of relationality, care, and labour. Show more