Gemma McLean-Carr

Thesis title: Odourising the Chinese ‘Other’: Smell and British Perceptions of China and ‘Chinatowns’, 1842-1946

Biography

Qualifications

MSc Contemporary History, University of Edinburgh (2022-2023)

PhD History, University of Edinburgh (2023-present)

Undergraduate teaching

I have previously tutored on the following courses within the School of History, Classics and Archeology: 

  • The Historian's Toolkit
  • The History of Edinburgh: From Din Eidyn to Festival City

Research summary

Provisional Title: Odourising the Chinese ‘other’: Smell and British Perceptions of China and ‘Chinatowns’, 1842-1946

My thesis explores the Chinese diaspora in nineteenth and twentieth-century Britain through the lens of smells and odours. It argues that anti-Chinese sentiment became deeply ingrained in every sense, primarily through odorous descriptions that positioned the ‘Oriental’ as a site of moral contagion and a threat to white predominance. It examines how a tangible, identifiable ‘Chinese’ aroma became injected into a multicultural space.

Current research interests

Sino-British Relations; Histories of the Senses; Smell Studies; Histories of Race and the Senses; Migration: History of Diaspora

Project activity

  • ECGH Asian Histories Graduate Network [Co-Founder, September 2024-present]
  • Edinburgh Centre for Global History: Graduate Workshop [Co-Convenor, 2024-2025]
  • Smell Studies Graduate Network [Member, 2022-present]

Xuelei Huang and Gemma McLean-Carr, “China through the European nose,” Encyclopedia of Smell History and Heritage,  https://encyclopedia.odeuropa.eu/items/show/37. [2024]

Papers delivered

  • 'Seeing Stench: National Identity and Odour in Eighteenth- And Nineteenth-Century Scotland,' Emotions and Scottish History Conference, University of Edinburgh, 22nd July 2025.
  • ‘Offensive Stenches and Western Noses: Olfactory Prejudice and Experience in London's Chinatown,’ Lancaster Historical Postgraduate Conference (LHPC), University of Lancaster, 25th-27th June 2025
  • “A thousand separate stenches:” Olfactory Sinophobia in Twentieth-Century Limehouse,’ Sensory Public History conference, University College London, 31st May 2025.
  • ‘Sniffing China from the West: The Role of Olfactory Prejudice in Shaping Mobility and Diaspora,’ British Postgraduate Network for Chinese Studies Conference, University of Glasgow, 23rd May 2025.
  • "A mysterious, soft and oppressive odour:” Sniffing Racial Difference between China and its Diaspora through Opium, c.1860- c.1930,’ International History of East Asia Research Seminar, University of Oxford, 21st May 2025.
  • 'Odourising the Chinese ‘other’: Smell and British Perceptions of China and "Chinatowns'" 1842-1946,' Edinburgh Centre for Global History Graduate Workshop, 26th March 2025
  • “That same languid smell:” Olfaction and the Chinese diaspora in London,’ University of Edinburgh, Graduate Conference, May 2024.
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