Tokyo College Event: “A Sensory Theory of Environmental Justice”

Abstract

Human senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch—shape how we perceive and interact with the world, influencing environmental experiences and cultural practices. Yet sensory politics—the social organization of touch, smell, and taste—often reinforces hierarchies, marginalizing certain groups as environmental ‘others.’ This lecture examines the ‘environmentality’ of the senses, focusing on their role in perpetuating inequalities within discriminatory social structures. By interrogating how sensory norms sustain injustice, I argue for a new environmental justice vocabulary—one that integrates sensory and social dimensions to address the entangled relationships between environment, power, and lived experience in caste-based societies.

Program

Lecturer 
Mukul SHARMA (Invited Professor, Tokyo College, The University of Tokyo; Professor, Ashoka University)
Commentator
HISANO Ai (Associate Professor, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies/Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies,The University of Tokyo)
Moderator
Trent BROWN (Associate Professor, Tokyo College, The University of Tokyo)