Nose-talgia, or, Olfactory Remembering of the Past and the Present in a City in Change
Nose-talgia, or, Olfactory Remembering of the Past and the Present in a City in Change

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses smell and how is it implicated in the ongoing transformations of urban space in Ljubljana, Slovenia. After outlining the processes of olfactory cleansing and labelling taking place in Ljubljana Old Town, principally for the purposes of touristification of the city, and sketching the method of sensobiographic walking which was used in the research presented, the article goes on to describe, via two ethnographic vignettes, how two of the research participants relate to cherished scents of coffee and how they connect these scents with life in Ljubljana. The first vignette deals with nostalgic memories of an elderly participant, the second with “nostalgia without memory” of a younger participant. Moreover, the entirety of the discussion is related to critiques of certain strands of architecture and urbanism, of which events in Ljubljana are paradigmatic examples, and how these strands end up, despite protestations to the contrary, advocating late capitalism.

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