Summary

Dr. Melanie McBride is a Canadian researcher-practitioner, founder of the Aroma Inquiry Lab at TMU’s Responsive Ecologies Lab (RELab), and adjunct professor at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU).  She is co-principal Investigator on research grants examining the material, structural, and environmental contingencies of learning and making across situated domains of skilled and materials-contingent practice.

Overview

My research program

My research program centres on the material, structural, and environmental contingencies of tacit, and multi-modal  across domains of skilled art, craft, and physical practices that are inconvenient for today’s automated and increasingly algorithmic educational schemes. More plainly, my research concerns the ‘stuff’ we learn with, the situated locations where high quality practice-based learning is situated and resourced. 

As a researcher-practitioner whose knowledge is constituted through ongoing and deliberate practice with physical (and very costly) materials that have complex properties that require specialized knowledge to use correctly and safely, I am interested in the ways applied practitioners organise, resource, and evidence the development of their art or craft and how this differs from those of institutional education. More critically, this involves an examination of ‘popular’ and scholarly representations (and mis-representations) of these same practices against the perspectives of actual makers whose voices are either ventriloquized or distorted outside of their respective communities of practice. 

My theoretical orientation

My theoretical orientation begins and ends with the material and ecological basis of practice, in contrast with the indirectly acquired, and second-hand knowledge that underwrites cognitivist notions of learning as mere informational accrual. My orientation is heavily influenced by anti-cognitivist James Gibson‘s ecological approach to perception as an activity that is contingent on the material and in-the-world affordances of environments, substances, and physical phenomena. I follow Gibson’s lead in challenging what he termed the ‘mentalist’ (i.e., ‘mind over matter’) orientation to, still dominant, neuro-centric (i.e., cognitivist) paradigms of learning and perception as a purely mental and machine-like processes of informational ‘accrual.’ Accordingly, my focus on affordances, reflects a concern with the in-the-world contingencies of applied, practice-based learning and knowing-as-doing that has proven inconvenient for the information–centric and increasingly algorithmic paradigms of educating that have proven so compatible with increasingly automated ‘fast-credentialing’ schemes.

Knowing With and Through Materials

Building on my over 30 years of teaching at the secondary, post-secondary, graduate, and professional/trade education, I have directly observed the overwhelmingly negative consequences of increasingly automated, algorithmic, screen-biased, and ‘hands-off’ paradigms of institutional education. Paradoxically, the argument that these technologically determinist educational programs are, somehow, more ‘innovative’ or ‘accessible’ or ‘inclusive’ than more applied practices of learning “with and through” (Ingold, 2013) in-the-world environments and materials maintains contested and regressively cognitivist paradigms of teaching as transmission and curriculum as content that also underwrites the equally dubious premises of so-called machine ‘learning’ and the pernicious conceits of the algorithmic turn in education, communications, and labour.

Current scholarship

My current publications and research examine the indirectly acquired educational products associated with transactional, customer-service paradigms of educating contributes to the erasure of forms of tacit, and materially contingent learning that is authentically situated in real environments, with real tools, overseen by actually expert human practitioners, involving real and tangible resources. I argue that the consequences of the regressive ordering of indirectly ‘acquired’ informational ‘content’ over authentically situated and directly experiential and practice-based learning, constitutes, what I have termed, “Educational Artifice.” By Educational Artifice, I refer to the increasingly automated pretence of educating that ultimately de-skills learners, learning, educators, and professionals through the non-voluntary and aggressive imposition of unregulated, unlawful, and environmentally destructive algorithmic technologies.

Knowledge mobilization

Over the past several decades, I have mobilised my scholarly knowledge through peer-reviewed academic conferences, symposiums, colloquia, and guest lectures. As a researcher-practitioner, I have facilitated many hands-on workshops locally and internationally, including a foray into “smell walks” undertaken in Marseille, Toronto, and Vancouver. While interesting, these initial explorations into the more subjective dimensions of smell as a kind of creative ‘sense making’ activity ultimately served to help me understand the over-determination of sensory paradigms at the expense of more grounded ways of knowing with and through aromatic materials rather than merely projecting ourselves onto them.

To this end, and building on my interest in the materiality of aromatic resources, I have since facilitated specialized master classes on sourcing and learning with aromatic ingredients and customized reference standards used in professional contexts of odour evaluation and characterization. I have presented on these and other related topics at Brock University’s International Cool Climate Wine Symposium, The Independent Wine Education Guild (IWEG), The Canadian Association of Sommeliers (CAPS),  George Brown’s Centre for Hospitality and Culinary Arts (CHCA), and scholarly conferences.

The Aroma Inquiry Lab

In 2013, I built on my doctoral field work study of aromatic materials for learning and cultural mediation [which you can read about here], as the inspiration for  Aroma Inquiry Lab, a satellite project within Toronto Metropolitan University’s Responsive Ecologies lab. 

In contrast with the neurocentric and mind-over-matter preoccupation with scent as a kind of Proustian ‘playback device’ for memories and emotions (see, McBride, 2013; 2018, for further detail), the Aroma Lab “affective” dimensions of smell) to focus on applied practices of learning with and through raw materials – rather than merely ‘about’ them. 

This orientation, on the materiality of aroma, rather than the subjectivity of ‘smell,’ is further reflected in the deliberate choice of the cultural term aroma, in contrast with ‘smell‘ (lab), which is concerned with the psychological/affective, neuroscientific, biological, and anatomical basis of functional olfaction (that I do not research). Accordingly, my focus on aroma as a physically situated and materially contingent practice of ‘inquiry,’ is oriented to the complex integration of knowledge, skills, literacies, and materials that are required to access, interact with, source, and understand aromatic materials as a multimodal resource for communicating, making, and learning at the site of production. 

From a learning standpoint, the Aroma Lab is centred on the kinds of literacies and skills that are acquired with and through materials (and environments) that I call “aroma inquiries.” This orientation emphasizes the kind of knowledge that is directly acquired through production (i.e., skilled practice, learning through doing, etc) as opposed to the purely sensory-hedonic nature of scent in the context of commodity culture and consumption. The use of the term “inquiry” reflects my research on non-institutional and situated domains of informal and inquiry-based learning.

Practice-informed pedagogies

In addition to my scholarly research on aroma as a missing modality in education and communications, I have spent the past 10 years engaged in both independent and structured study of the material and ecological contingencies of aromatic learning and skilled practice. I have led workshops for academic symposia, Master Classes for the wine and spirits trade, wine education certification courses, and university oenology and viticulture programs. 

My current practice involves conventional, experimental, artisanal, and mixed-media scent applications, from the creation of aromatic reference standards for nose training to technical scent design. These projects include research projects, conference workshops, prototypes, and exhibits. I recently collaborated with the Art Gallery of Ontario to design four unique and historically-themed scents for the Making Her Mark Exhibit, which you can read about in my interview with Foyer Magazine.

Industry Background + Teaching

After completing my undergraduate degree, I studied online writing and information design at Centennial College with an interest in interactive storytelling. For many years I worked as a freelance writer, editor, and content producer for independent and national digital media, including interactive fiction for Toronto’s Trapeze Media, digital heritage stories for CBC’s award-winning Digital Archives, educational content for Toronto’s Mystus Interactus Exhibits, digital training content for government clients, and consulting and talks for magazine and digital culture non-profits, such as Magazine’s Canada. These industry experiences led to my first instructional appointments teaching post-secondary and post-graduate courses in interactive writing, new media, digital reporting, and professional communications at Centennial College’s School of Communications, Media and Design. 

Education

I have a B.A. (Specialist) in English literature from the University of Toronto, and a B.Ed. (Intermediate/Secondary) from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto), and later M.A. and Ph.D. from York University’s joint program in Communications and Culture.  After completing my doctorate, I was awarded a Post-doctoral Fellowship from the Faculty of Education, York University to examine the curriculum and pedagogy associated with aromatic literacy in wine education.

Educational Qualifications

• Ph.D., Communications and Culture, York University. 
• M.A., Communication and Culture, York University.
• B.Ed., Bachelor of Education (Intermediate/Secondary), Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto.
• B.A. Hons., Bachelor of Arts, English Literature, University of Toronto.

Additional Training + Certifications

• Certificates in Natural Perfumery (Introductory and Intermediate). Between 2017 and 2019 I travelled to Berkeley, California to undertake courses with American natural perfumer Mandy Aftel at her home studio.
• Additional Teaching Qualifications (AQ): Media I and II, York University/Ontario College of Teachers.
• Post-Graduate Certificate in Online Writing and Information Design, Centennial College, School of Communications.
• Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) [current status: Inactive/Non-Practicing], certified secondary school teacher (Ontario College of Teachers) 

Press
My work, ideas, perspectives are cited in scholarly articles and books, television, radio, and print media, interviews, and trade blogs.  Please see my speaking page for further detail, or visit my contact page for inquiries related to my research and practice. 

Please use my Contact form for professional inquiries.