On a summer day in Nashville, one person escapes the heat in an air-conditioned office while another delivers packages in a metal truck that absorbs heat or labors outdoors for hours under the sun.
Both people experience the same weather, but according to new research from Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Arts Sasha Crawford-Holland, they do not experience the same heat.
In a new paper published in Feminist Media Histories, titled “Heat Is a Power Relation: Standards, Standpoints, and the Intimacies of Comfort,” Crawford-Holland argues that temperature is more than a number on a thermostat or a personal sensation. According to his research, social structures, technologies, and institutions shape who stays comfortable, who faces dangerous conditions, and whose experiences society takes seriously and should be considered to better inform climate policies.
“The paper addresses a tension between two main ways of thinking about temperature: either as an objective number or a subjective experience,” Crawford-Holland said. “On one hand, the idea that temperature is objective can be harmful because it ignores people’s diverse experiences. This has led some researchers to emphasize that temperature is subjective. However, the idea of thermal subjectivity can also be weaponized. Since both approaches are partially true but potentially harmful, my research asks how we can synthesize their insights to recognize the structural forces that organize/arrange people’s experiences of temperature.”
In his work, Crawford-Holland discussed office temperature standards historically prioritizing the comfort of men wearing business suits. Those standards came to represent an objective measure of comfort despite research showing that women often prefer warmer temperatures for physiological and cultural reasons, such as slower metabolisms and cultural expectations regarding workplace attire.
However, framing heat as entirely subjective can minimize dangerous forms of harm. He points to prisons as an example, where incarcerated people often endure dangerously high temperatures while officials dismiss their concerns as individual complaints rather than evidence of unsafe conditions.
Rather than choosing between measurements and lived experiences, Crawford-Holland argues that creative methods, such as video journalism, should bring the two together. Investigations into extreme heat in prisons have already adopted that approach by pairing temperature readings with testimony from incarcerated people. Combining data with personal accounts helps reveal how environmental conditions intersect with social and political structures, which in turn helps shape how institutions respond and better inform public policy.
“Instead of reducing temperature either to a number or an anecdote, these investigations show how conditions are shaped by environmental, physiological, and social factors together,” he said. “They help us understand what makes some people especially vulnerable to detention practices that nonetheless endanger everyone. This matters because it affects how we respond to injustice. If the problem is seen as individual, it can be resolved by making exceptions for individual detainees. But if the problem is structural, it requires a more fundamental interrogation of how and why prisons operate.”
Crawford-Holland’s interest in temperature began with his own experiences moving to Tennessee. Born in Canada, he grew up in a culture that often celebrates cold weather as part of national identity. However, living in Nashville introduced him to a very different relationship with temperature, including humid summers and heavily air-conditioned indoor spaces. Those experiences led him to explore how social and cultural systems shape sensations that often feel deeply personal.
As climate change intensifies, Crawford-Holland said he hopes researchers and policymakers continue examining how societies distribute thermal risk.
“Extreme heat already kills half a million people every year,” he said. “Socially vulnerable populations such as incarcerated people, migrant workers, and those with disabilities face the most acute risks. As these dangers escalate, I hope that people will continue to focus attention on the ways that social structures distribute thermal risk. Global heating makes it clear that temperature is hardly natural, but this is equally true at more local scales, including—perhaps especially—intimate scales like our homes and our bodies.”