@article {Batesmedhum-2017-011347, author = {Victoria Bates}, title = {Sensing space and making place: the hospital and therapeutic landscapes in two cancer narratives}, elocation-id = {medhum-2017-011347}, year = {2018}, doi = {10.1136/medhum-2017-011347}, publisher = {Institute of Medical Ethics}, abstract = {This article explores the role of senses in the construction and experience of place, focusing on patients{\textquoteright} experiences of hospital care. It compares two cancer narratives for their insights into the heterogeneous ways that hospital environments are made into therapeutic landscapes, arguing that they are a product of dynamic processes rather than something that is simply built. The article draws on a relational model of space and place, alongside literary analysis, to explore the making of un/healthy environments in embodied, affective and sensory terms. It indicates that sensory experiences in hospitals are made (un)therapeutic in relation to illness and recovery, as well as a range of social and human/non-human relations. These conclusions warn against making broad claims about {\textquoteleft}good{\textquoteright} or {\textquoteleft}bad{\textquoteright} hospital sensescapes, or against treating the hospital as a homogeneous space. They also offer new opportunities for medical geography and the medical humanities, by showing how illness and recovery are part of the relational making of space and place.}, issn = {1468-215X}, URL = {https://mh.bmj.com/content/early/2018/05/02/medhum-2017-011347}, eprint = {https://mh.bmj.com/content/early/2018/05/02/medhum-2017-011347.full.pdf}, journal = {Medical Humanities} }