Publications
A Touch of Luck and a “Real Taste of Vegas”: A Sensory Ethnography of the Montreal Casino.
Erin Lynch, David Howes, Martin French
In recent years, there has been an explosion of “experiential design” in casinos, driven in part by research suggesting that curating gambling sensescapes can lure patrons to spend more time and money. Building on existing casino ethnographies, this paper argues that a sensory ethnographic approach to the study of gambling environments can offer valuable insight into the experiential design and mood management of the casino. We use sensory ethnography to explore the ambiance of the Montreal Casino, particularly during the casino’s “Vegas Nights” promotion. How does the casino feel (and how does it touch back)? What rhythms flow through its neon labyrinth? What does “getting a real taste of Vegas,” well … taste like? Ultimately, we argue that the casino floor is unlike a sensory research laboratory; here, sensations mix and mingle, and it takes a sensory ethnographer to quite literally “make sense” of the casino ambiance and its impact on visitor experience.
Walking with a Ghost River: Unsettling Place in the Anthropocene
Tricia Toso, Kassandra Spooner-Lockyer, and Kregg Hetherington
The call to explore a different mode of being-human in what many have termed the Anthropocene, is an invitation to think about what it means to live in place in a more expansive and speculative way. It also asks that we take a different starting point for critical inquiry. This paper charts the messy, and often faltering methodologies we have developed as a means of thinking through urban landscapes of colonial violence, and engaging with the ghostly forms of past histories in present-day urban places through the multi-sensorial experience of walking. In attending to the many complex connections and relationships between socio-economic, techno-political, and the more-than-human world, we broadened our lens of inquiry to include the multitude of related and interconnected spatial and temporal relationships that came across our path, and sought to develop a mode of ethical relationing with a ghost river.
The Big Flush of Montreal: On Affective Maintenance and Infrastructural Events
Kregg Hetherington and Elie Jabert
This article is about a brief controversy that erupted in 2015 around the City of Montreal’s plan to divert 8 billion liters of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River when conducting critical maintenance on its sewer infrastructure. In the end, the Flush was non-eventful: it went ahead as planned and with no lasting effects or complaints. The authors suggest that the best way to understand how the city averted the crisis is through the concept of “affective maintenance.” If infrastructures are meant to be uneventful (i.e. narratively stable and generally lacking in surprise ruptures), then the maintenance of public affect is as important to their functioning as the physical work that keeps sewage flowing in the right direction.
Encounters with Urban Glaciers: Notes Toward an Ethnography of the Snow Dump
Tricia Toso and Pier-Olivier Tremblay
The messages of glaciers are complex, but one thing is clear is that human activity is having a devastating impact. The gravity, immensity, and duration of glaciers makes it hard to grasp; we understand so little of the earth’s ancient cryospheres. The urban glacier, however, seems to offer another approach to the problem of climate devastation. These great, black, toxic hulks of sacrificed snow offer lessons on the violence of the occupation and degradation of these lands and waters, and perhaps if we focus on their extinction, we can begin to restore our relations with glaciers. This article begins such work.
Île Sainte-Thérèse: An Island is More Than a Park / Une Île C’est Plus Qu’un Parc
Montreal Waterways Collective
In the fall of 2021, mayors from the Greater Montreal area officially announced a plan to develop Île-Sainte-Thérèse (Sainte-Thérèse Island) into an Eco-Park. The park project is an expansion of an already existing network of park and recreational infrastructure across various municipalities throughout the Hochelaga Archipelago. But the new park project on Île-Sainte-Thérèse, which aims to make land and water more accessible to the public, comes at a cost of 50 family cottages that will be evicted from the island. In the year following this announcement, a group of graduate students from Montreal Waterways, a working group from the Concordia Ethnography Lab, worked collaboratively to explore the island’s history and the material entanglements with land and water, as well as to speculate what is to become of this place and its inhabitants.
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The Pit Zine
EMERGE
The Francon Quarry, which the authors refer to as the Pit, is an enigmatic space at the heart of the Saint-Michel borough of Montreal, often unseen despite its spectacular size. Its landscape, a post-extraction site that now receives almost half of Montreal’s snow, hides a history of dreamed and contested futures from geologists, corporations, and local activist communities. Several members of what is now EMERGE produced a zine inspired by a request from a community leader in Saint-Michel who told us “the way you could help us, is to visualize the possibilities.” Through the production of this zine, the authors also sought to enact care and fun as collaborative research methods in their own right.
Les Ruelles Vertes et Bleues-Vertes Comme Espace D’engagement Citoyen
Alice Bonneau
Au cours des dix dernières années, l’engouement pour les ruelles vertes a été particulièrement important à Montréal. Alors que ces projets de verdissement initiés par des citoyen.nes se multiplient, on a récemment vu s’ajouter à ce type de projet une dimension « bleue », c’est-à-dire la gestion des eaux pluviales. Le milieu de la recherche s’intéresse d’ailleurs de plus en plus à ces initiatives, qui sont étudiées entre autres comme espace de socialisation supportant l’implication et l’engagement des citoyens et des citoyennes.
L’implication Citoyenne dans les Ruelles Bleues-vertes: Ambitions, Défis et Enjeux de L’engagement au Quotidien
Camila Patiño Sanchez, Alice Bonneau et Sophie L. Van Neste
Depuis 2017, l’Alliance Ruelles bleues-vertes fait la promotion d’un modèle d’infrastructures « bleuesvertes » visant à améliorer l’espace urbain et la gestion des eaux de pluie dans une gouvernance partagée impliquant les habitantes, la Ville de Montréal et des associations locales, dans les ruelles montréalaises. Cette recherche exploratoire vise à mieux comprendre l’implication citoyenne au sein de projets de ruelles bleues-vertes et de ruelles vertes. Si l’implication citoyenne est une composante fondamentale du mode de gouvernance des projets de ruelles bleues-vertes, les enjeux d’engagement à court, moyen et long terme restent à préciser. Nous avons cherché à saisir les enjeux et modalités de cette implication citoyenne de trois manières.
Re-centering Indigenous experiences of Montreal: a report on a photovoice project in Cabot Square
Cabot Square Photovoice Collective (CSPC)
At a time when Montreal is celebrating its founding narrative and has just unveiled a new flag that includes aHaudenosaunee symbol, our article seeks to highlight the longstanding presence of Indigenous peoples in thecity and in Cabot Square as a local gathering place. We present the results of a photovoice project in CabotSquare, in association with the Montreal Urban Aboriginal Community Strategy NETWORK and theConcordia Ethnography Lab, and in consultation and association with Indigenous students.