Author: Rice, T.
Description: The exploration of how places are heard, “how they sound and resound”, has been very largely neglected in ethnographic enquiry. Academic literature on place has been dominated by a pervasive visual bias, with the result that a deaf ear has been turned to the acoustic properties of environments. Stephen Feld (1996) questions the sufficiency of visually-orientated enquiry into emplacement. Like Stoller (1997) and Ingold (2000), he suggests that the multi-sensory nature of perceptual experience should logically require the multi-sensory conceptualization of place. In his article “Waterfalls of song” he argues “the potential of acoustic knowing.” Sound, combined with an awareness of sonic presence, is posited as a powerful force in shaping how people interpret their experiences. Acoustemology, the “exploration of sonic sensibilities”, brings the ethnographer closer to understanding the significance of sound to experiential truth.
Subject headings: Ethnography; Sounds; Acoustics; Interpretation; Acoustemology
Publication year: 2003
Journal or book title: Anthropology Today
Volume: 19
Issue: 4
Pages: 4-9
Find the full text: https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8322.00201
Find more like this one (cited by): https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=15769013255566507564&as_sdt=1000005&sciodt=0,16&hl=en
Type: Journal Article
Serial number: 1301