How environments get to the skin: biosensory ethnography as a method for investigating the relation between psychosis and the city

Abstract

Epidemiological research in psychiatry has established robust evidence of the link between urban living and psychosis, but the situated experience of the city, as well as the precise ecology of psychosis remain largely unexplored. In this context, the aim of this paper is to discuss the productive potential of a ‘re-vitalized’ biosocial geographical thinking and researching on urban mental health. We do so through a methodological proposition. First, we discuss the need for a biosocial approach to the city/psychosis nexus and argue that a broader biological view, beyond epigenetics and neurosciences and a more precise investigation of ‘the social’ need to be developed. Second, a telling and recurring motto of recent reflections on biosocial processes is to understand how the environment or the social ‘gets under the skin’. We suggest examining a specific place in this pathway, the skin itself. This leads us to expose a methodology using electrodermal activity (EDA), combined with ethnographic observations and interviews, as a strategy for analysing ecological processes in psychosis. In doing so, we discuss the potential of ‘biosensory ethnographies’ in studies of urban mental health and more broadly as a biosocial approach to the geography of health.