Scrutinising Social Control in the City through the Senses

In this chapter, we start by focusing on the intersection between social control and certain senses, also drawing on our previous work on social control of “incivilities” in mostly Western cities. While so doing, we also consider practices of resistance in the city, which also mobilise the senses to challenge the dominant sensory order, as shaped and enforced by powerful majorities, sometimes even affecting how spaces look and feel to people. However, the way urban life is negotiated is not mono‑sensory; rather, it often engages the totality of our sensory experiences. We address this “totality” in the second part of the chapter, where we use the example of mass tourism to show how all our senses can be conjured up in social control practices – including in shaping constructions of sensory disorder‑related “problems” and their “solutions” in the city. We conclude with a short summary and reflections on potential future research in this area.