Feminine Value.s: Locating the Senses in Wellness’s Gendered Capitalism

Building from my ethnographic fieldwork, I place the sensory elements of the female- dominated wellness community in Paris, France at the forefront of a broader analysis of wellness capitalism and (post)feminist aesthetics.
Beginning with a discussion of two competing diet trends, I argue that the deployment of the senses in the French wellness community merges neoliberal postfeminism with the gender-essentialist traditional femininity (trad-fem) movement. This “gooey”, agentive, and sensory-driven atmosphere of wellness (Frohlick, 2024) is built upon a feminized (Barcan, 2014) system of health-seeking behaviours, one which valorizes an intuitive, do-your-own-research approach to health and embraces the (often contradictory) wills of the marketplace (Sobo, 2024).
I show how this community encapsulates both postfeminist and gender essentialist approaches through the exploration of “do-diets” (Cairns & Johnston, 2015) based on optimizing attunement with the body to maximize productivity, and “ancestral diets” (LeClerc, 2022) that are in-tune with the cycles purportedly intrinsic to the feminine body. These diets are not simply exercises in food restriction, but rather they are ‘lifestyles’; constellations of sensory regimes that seek to perfect the individual and unite social groups, through nutraceuticals, exercise philosophies, aroma-/ light- /sound-therapies, and skincare/makeup routines, among others. These sensory atmospheres pull wellness both far into the future and deep into the past, working both for and against the natural ‘intuition’ of the essentialized feminine body.
Keywords: health, wellness, postfeminism, sensory capitalism, food cultures

Tau Lenskjold and Danielle Wilde (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark) 105

Remaking Gut Relations

This paper hones in on the potentials of working performatively and intra-actionally with bodies through design. We consider life-affirming practices engendered through participatory activities that harness patients’ creativity, offering new ways to cope with chronic gut disease. Building on a theoretical and methodological approach to embodiment, we discuss the conceptual and practical consequences of extending embodied design in a collaborative mode to also entail trans-corporal and intertwined multispecies bodies of human-microbiome relations. Revisiting the Shit! project—a collaboration with the Danish Colitis and Crohn’s patient support organisation—we analyse how bodies become visible and tangible through scripted material interactions like drawing the gut, building the gut, and making "shitty" cakes. These activities encourage imaginative and expressive thinking while reshaping relationships with the gut and chronic illness. The research integrates food as a sensory and creative medium, fostering embodied imagination to shift societal perspectives on gut health. By emphasising culture, creativity, and social connections, we propose co-creative design methods to transform daily life for patients. Our central question asks: How can embodied, food-related activities enable sense-making and self-expression, fostering inclusive participation among diverse individuals? The approach highlights the body and food as central design materials, reframing gut health through culture and creativity.
Keywords: participation, embodied imagining, food, IBD, poetics

Vanessa Castello Branco Pereira (Independent Clinical Practice in Health Care)

Olfactory Play and Sensory Enrichment: Engaging the Senses in Clinical and Social Interaction

Olfaction plays a crucial role in shaping social bonds, memory, and well-being. However, individuals with olfactory disorders from different etiologies often experience social isolation, emotional distress, and disruptions in daily life. This paper explores olfactory play and sensory enrichment as tools for therapeutic applications in clinical and social reintegration, offering a novel approach that combines game mechanics with sensory-based interventions. Drawing from Olfactory Therapy, this work examines how structured olfactory activities—such as scent-based board games and storytelling exercises—foster engagement, stimulate sensory perception, and create shared multisensory experiences. Implemented in diverse settings—including mental health hospitals, elder care centers, and therapeutic programs—this approach highlights the potential of olfactory play to reconnect individuals experiencing health-related disabilities with their environment and social networks. By shifting from a cognitive-neuroscientific paradigm to an embodied, experiential framework, this project underscores the need to integrate multisensory methodologies in therapeutic applications, suggesting that olfactory games can help participants reframe their sensory experiences, reinforcing agency and participation throughout treatment and social life. This work contributes to cross-disciplinary dialogues between health sciences, anthropology, and sensory studies, advocating for play-based sensory interventions in clinical and community contexts. Keywords: Olfactory Therapy, Sensory Enrichment, Play-based Interventions, Multisensory Approaches, Health and Social Integration