ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on the conceptual properties of smell related to the constitution of place and the longing for home as they breeze through the memories of victims of forced removal, and use them to unpack the contested, olfactory-based social classifications that led to forced removal in Cape Town. It analyses smell memories that appear in primary and secondary sources recounting life before and after the forced removal of the non-white residents. The chapter latches onto the fragrances that perfume recollections of home before and after forced removal to show what a sensory studies approach to oral history archives might look like. It shows how the odorized recollections contributed to notions of place that challenged the official, racist olfactory classifications of these cosmopolitan urban communities. The chapter illustrates how the aromas that drift through the history of racialized urban violence were a sensuous space in which the right to the city and belonging was claimed and contested.
