Multisensory Ethnography: Mapping Sex Work in Pigalle, Paris

Researching vulnerable populations requires understanding that people have their own defenses and cannot be regarded as entirely defenseless. Melanie Klein's psychoanalytic theory suggests the self is forged from unconscious defenses against anxiety, meaning people categorize the world into trusted and untrusted categories. Consent is not a one-time cognitive process but a continuing emotional awareness throughout interactions. Initial consent is preliminary; as trust develops, participants may reveal more than intended. Researchers should consider asking for consent at interview ends and debrief participants after research, revealing aims and objectives.

Research with marginalized communities requires trust and safety as paramount. Colonially marginalized communities do not want to feel exploited or objectified. The solution is building a bridge of trust where the community advocates and represents itself. Research must be 100% self-representational, with only people identifying as GRtSB participating. Anonymity must be respected, with options to decline being contacted, named, or photographed. Multiple data collection methods (online surveys, telephone interviews, face-to-face conversations) accommodate different community members, particularly elders who may need family help with surveys.

This section presents comprehensive ethical frameworks for conducting research with vulnerable groups. Key barriers include informed consent wording that restricts data sharing, high costs of anonymizing detailed transcripts, small sample sizes requiring strict confidentiality, and uncertainty about disclosure thresholds in qualitative data. Best practices involve continuous co-production with civil society organizations throughout all research stages—from question development to output dissemination. Informed consent processes must be adapted for literacy barriers and institutional distrust, sometimes allowing oral consent. The 'nothing about me without me' ethos emphasizes community involvement at every stage. These models demonstrate that open research with vulnerable populations requires balancing transparency with protection, using co-production to ensure research serves community interests rather than merely extracting knowledge.

A four-step collaborative ethical framework guides naming decisions: (1) Discuss options honestly with participants—don't default to anonymity; explain tradeoffs between protection and authentic representation, share potential risks and benefits of different approaches; (2) Genuinely involve participants in research decisions—not token consultation, but real choice-making that respects cultural and personal preferences; (3) Document rationale transparently so future researchers and readers understand how and why naming decisions were made; (4) Recognize that consent is ongoing—names and preferences can change as research relationships evolve, and participants should retain agency throughout the process.

Research ethics requires informed consent, with participants informed of their rights, withdrawal options, and research benefits. Opt-out approaches assume consent unless participants actively decline. Limited disclosure may be used for low-risk research. Researchers must avoid coercion, especially when power dynamics exist between researcher and participants. Anonymity is preserved through coding and minimizing stored information. Special populations requiring additional ethical considerations include children, pregnant women, people with disabilities, and indigenous communities. Ethical codes include honesty, objectivity, integrity, confidentiality, and responsible publication. Research ethics promotes knowledge, truth, and credibility while fostering trust, accountability, mutual respect, and fairness.

De Wallen, Amsterdam's largest and best-known red-light district, consists of approximately 300 one-room cabins rented by prostitutes. The area first appeared when the Damrak became a harbor around 1270, attracting prostitution and migrant populations due to proximity to the harbor. From late medieval times, restrictions limited access for married men and priests. In 1578 during the Dutch Revolt, a Protestant city board banned fornication, forcing sex workers underground. Even after the 1811 ban was lifted, trade remained small-scale. During the Napoleonic era, French Imperial Naval Corps clients frequented the area. Regulation introduced in the early 19th century included compulsory health checks to protect soldiers from venereal diseases. Cisgender women use red lights while transgender women use blue lights.

The Red Light District of Amsterdam, known locally as De Wallen, is the oldest and largest red-light district in the city and one of its major tourist attractions. De Wallen derives its name from the historical canals Oudezijds Voorburgwal and Oudezijds Achterburgwal, where “burgwal” originally referred to defensive walls with fronting canals, now used to denote the canals themselves. The district consists of a network of alleys containing approximately 300 one-room cabins where sex workers offer services from behind windows or glass doors, typically illuminated by red lights and blacklight—a practice known as window prostitution. De Wallen, along with the Singelgebied and Ruysdaelkade areas, forms the Rosse Buurt, Amsterdam’s collective red-light zones. The area also features numerous sex shops, sex theatres, peep shows, a sex museum, a cannabis museum, and coffee shops that legally sell cannabis. Access to De Wallen is restricted on Thursdays through Sundays starting at 1:00 am, with bars and restaurants closing at 2:00 am and brothels at 3:00 am. The district is located in the oldest part of Amsterdam and remains a prominent cultural and tourist landmark despite regulatory restrictions.

Kabukicho is a district in Shinjuku, Tokyo known for its dual nature - during the day it appears quiet with classic theatres, shopping centres, hotels, and restaurants suitable for families, but after sunset transforms into an area with a strong adult atmosphere filled with luminous signboards and deafening music from bars and clubs.

Kabukicho, Tokyo's famous red-light district, represents a dangerous tourist trap designed to extract money from visitors. The presenter experiences a typical scam: a man guides him to a bar where he pays 5000 yen for a 30-minute visit, then 3000-5000 yen for drinks. Tourists are pressured to select women from a lineup, most of whom are Asian but not Japanese. The presenter is asked to delete photos taken inside and is subsequently targeted by the same man at the exit, attempting to guide him to another establishment. The presenter concludes that this entertainment district is designed to exploit tourists and should be avoided entirely.

Kabukicho, another famous Tokyo entertainment district, was rebuilt after World War II bombings. A cook named Suzuki Kii, who also worked at the British Embassy, envisioned transforming the area into a recreation zone with theaters, cinemas, and ice skating rinks. By the 1960s, it became known as 'the city that never sleeps.' During Japan's economic bubble in the 1980s, Kabukicho transformed into a destination for business men seeking entertainment after work, filled with bars and hostess clubs. Unlike Yoshiwara, Kabukicho was never officially a red light district, though it provides the popular tourist image of what a Japanese red light district should look like with its elaborate decorations and neon lights.

Effective urban planning must begin with sensory experiences and memories rather than purely intellectual or economic considerations. People bring memories into landscapes that aren't written down—they build from memory using hands and senses rather than plans. Technical solutions like stop signs may make crossings safer according to data, but sensory experiences of noise, car mass, and visual stimuli can still make spaces feel unsafe. Cities cannot be improved solely through intellectualization; planners must engage with how people actually experience and understand space through their senses. This approach recognizes that universal human needs for nurturing, healthy, fun, and nature-filled outdoor spaces transcend cultural differences, providing a foundation for designing inclusive urban environments.

Sensory considerations have practical applications in city planning, design, and service industries. During Bangkok Design Week, exhibits demonstrated mapping districts through different soundscapes at various times of day and using color swatches from distinctive buildings to create sensory profiles. Sensory approaches also serve safety purposes, such as placing shrines at accident-prone road locations to slow drivers using the sixth sense (spiritual awareness). Historically, water was placed at gates to address thirst, demonstrating how sensory interventions can influence human behavior without visual signage.

Cities can be designed for human well-being by mapping and analyzing multi-sensory urban experiences beyond traditional metrics like safety and efficiency; through citizen-driven pairwise comparison games and crowdsourced sensory data, researchers can identify positive urban elements (such as greenery and landmarks) that increase social capital and happiness, while also capturing subjective experiences like smell and sound that traditional urban planning often overlooks.

Sensory ethnography is an empirical social science approach that investigates societal practices and embodied implicit knowledge through exploration, direct observation, participation, and interpretation. It focuses on multi-sensory attention to the interaction of all senses (smell, taste, vision, touch, kinesthetics) in relation to perception, place, knowing, memory, and imagination. This approach helps understand how places become more than material structures by investigating how spaces open up for imagining and experimenting. Placemaking is a dynamic, relational process where places have open meanings created through gatherings involving humans and nonhumans. The material surroundings become meaningful through specific interactions, activities, and emotions involving all human senses in shared experiences.

Multi-sensory research methods are essential for understanding cities because traditional visual methods capture only about one-fifth of urban experience; these methods reveal significant variability in how urban professionals engage with sensory data and demonstrate that streets in different European cities (London, Cologne, Barcelona) have distinct sensory characteristics shaped by cultural, architectural, and historical factors, requiring researchers to communicate clearly across diverse audiences including museum curators, artisans, and urban planners.