Draw your air. An ethnography of imaginaries and perceptions in Marseille (France) and Liege (Belgium)

To enrich our understanding of the interactions between people and the air they live in, my work relies on affects, senses, bodies and imaginary dimensions in an original way. To do so, I study the sensitive perceptions and imaginaries of urban inhabitants in relation to air and its quality/pollution. My approach is based on an ethnography in the industrial cities of Marseille, France and Liege, Belgium. I tackle the question of air in a very embodied way, through the use of sensory walks and sensitive maps.
Perceptions and imaginaries of air cannot be observed directly so I mobilize an experimental method : I organize collective workshops with voluntary inhabitants. I invite them (i) to pay attention to their bodies, to their breathing, and to the air around them ; (ii) to share with me how they daily lives in their neighbourhood through sensory maps they create during the activity. Then, I make my own body experience by visiting each place they evoked using my senses, my recorder and my camera. In this contribution, I will present some results through accounts and maps made by my interlocutors.