Zmysły w ruchu. Socjologia codziennej mobilności miejskiej

Abstract

The article explores the sensory and affective dimensions of everyday urban mobility in Warsaw, based on qualitative and multisensory ethnographic research conducted between 2012 and 2014. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from sensuous geography (Rodaway, 1994), phenomenology of perception (Merleau-Ponty, 2001), and multisensory ethnography (Pink, 2009), the study conceptualizes mobility not merely as physical movement between locations, but as an embodied, relational, and affective practice through which city dwellers experience, interpret, and co-create urban space. Using a combination of qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews, sensory walks, expert interviews, unfinished sentence tests, and sensory diaries, the author investigates how residents of Warsaw perceive the city through sight, hearing, touch, smell, and movement. The analysis highlights that each sensory modality contributes differently to urban knowledge: touch grounds bodily orientation and accessibility; hearing organizes spatial awareness and emotional regulation; sight constructs aesthetic and social hierarchies; smell evokes memory, belonging, and class distinctions; and movement ties all sensory and affective experiences together into a rhythm of everyday life.The article explores the sensory and affective dimensions of everyday urban mobility in Warsaw, based on qualitative and multisensory ethnographic research conducted between 2012 and 2014. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from sensuous geography (Rodaway, 1994), phenomenology of perception (Merleau-Ponty, 2001), and multisensory ethnography (Pink, 2009), the study conceptualizes mobility not merely as physical movement between locations, but as an embodied, relational, and affective practice through which city dwellers experience, interpret, and co-create urban space. Using a combination of qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews, sensory walks, expert interviews, unfinished sentence tests, and sensory diaries, the author investigates how residents of Warsaw perceive the city through sight, hearing, touch, smell, and movement. The analysis highlights that each sensory modality contributes differently to urban knowledge: touch grounds bodily orientation and accessibility; hearing organizes spatial awareness and emotional regulation; sight constructs aesthetic and social hierarchies; smell evokes memory, belonging, and class distinctions; and movement ties all sensory and affective experiences together into a rhythm of everyday life.The article explores the sensory and affective dimensions of everyday urban mobility in Warsaw, based on qualitative and multisensory ethnographic research conducted between 2012 and 2014. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from sensuous geography (Rodaway, 1994), phenomenology of perception (Merleau-Ponty, 2001), and multisensory ethnography (Pink, 2009), the study conceptualizes mobility not merely as physical movement between locations, but as an embodied, relational, and affective practice through which city dwellers experience, interpret, and co-create urban space. Using a combination of qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews, sensory walks, expert interviews, unfinished sentence tests, and sensory diaries, the author investigates how residents of Warsaw perceive the city through sight, hearing, touch, smell, and movement. The analysis highlights that each sensory modality contributes differently to urban knowledge: touch grounds bodily orientation and accessibility; hearing organizes spatial awareness and emotional regulation; sight constructs aesthetic and social hierarchies; smell evokes memory, belonging, and class distinctions; and movement ties all sensory and affective experiences together into a rhythm of everyday life