Geographies of Knowledge in the International Fragrance Industry

Abstract

This study examines the international fragrance industry according to the practices of knowing and repositories and spatialities of knowledge. It is based on qualitative data from research interviews with industry experts in New York, USA, and Paris, France that were conducted between 2006 and 2008. The industry serves as an example to map sensible practices of knowing. Therewith, the study contributes to the developing field of practice-based studies of knowledge within economic geography. The study examines and documents that knowledge is produced in different learning places but also develops through the mobility of an emerging fragrance. Fragrances are epistemic objects that are mobilized in order to gain shape and this affects different practitioners and their ways of dealing with a scent. The study puts a focus on the epistemic object in certain learning places as well as its mobilizations. Furthermore, the study builds connections to the literatures on cultural-product industries and the geographies of emotion.