A Visceral Politics of Sound

Abstract

Questions of bodies and embodiment are a critical focus for geographers. In this paper we advance discussion of the mobilisation of bodies that investigates the interconnections between the visceral and discursive, through paying attention to the affordances of sound. We draw on our ethnographic research of the Climate Camp parade held during October 2009 in Helensburgh, New South Wales, Australia. Using feminist theory and visceral understandings of socio-political life, we explore sounds to illustrate how people's beliefs about climate change are mobilised at this parade. We argue that visceral experiences of the rhythmic affordances of sounds-flow, pulse and beat-provide us insights as to how people are mobilised into action. Our results explore bodily judgements of sounds to illustrate how a visceral approach can help to mobilise bodies in ways that can both upset, and reproduce, particular beliefs, subjects and places.

Dissonance: scientific paradigms underpinning the study of sound in geography

“…Sonic affects, or sound as affect, becomes a central concept (Duffy & Waitt 2011;Boyd & Duffy 2012). It has been pointed out that this means that sound has important social (Boland 2010;Kanngieser 2012) and political (Barns 2014;Waitt et al 2014) significance, besides its aesthetic role. Within this perspective, Gallagher, Kanngieser and Prior (2017) proposed the concept of 'expanded listening' to grasp the multiple effects of sound in the spatio-temporality of social life.…”

“…The works of Waitt with other authors (Duffy et al 2010;Waitt et al 2014Waitt et al , 2017 have applied the feminist concept of visceral politics to sound experience. Affect theory (e.g.…”

How is space made in sound? Spatial mediation, critical phenomenology and the political agency of sound

“…Where the political agency of sound is concerned these relate to the ability of sound in the form of, for example the human voice or other sounds to rouse, shape and focus emotional impulse and action towards particular political ends within constituencies, groups and individuals. As those geographers concerned with embodied and affective politics suggest, sounds have the power to engage us directly and emotionally, encouraging deep and personal experiences of shared feeling (Waitt et al, 2014). At the same time sound in the form of voice acts as a P a g e | 15 marker of political authority when publics are addressed directly and when members of the polity speak out discuss, participate and protest (Kannegeiser, 2011).…”

“…Thus the property of touch at a distance grounded in both the visceral physicality of vibration and the lucidity of memory and imagination affords the most intimate and direct calls for political action and affiliation. As such this form of sonic agency P a g e | 18 may be understood as animating the sort of affective and embodied politics described by Waitt et al, (2014). Most importantly, it plays a central role in a politics of recognition key to the admission of individuals and groups into the political process (Haikli and Kallio, 2014: 185-188;Honneth, 1995;Taylor, 1994).…”

“…For some time geographers have been interested in sonic spaces both from a phenomenological perspective (Tuan, 1974;Pocock, 1989;Rodaway, 1994), and in terms of affective, emotional and performative responses to sonic events, practices, locations, places, concerts, festivals, dances and sessions (Anderson 2004;Anderson et al, 2005;Boland, 2010;De Silvey, 2010;Gallagher and Prior, 2014;Hudson, 2006;Matless, 2005;Morton, 2005;Revill, 2004;Smith, 1997;Smith, 2000;Wood et al, 2007;Wood, 2012;Wood and Smith, 2004). In addition to a concern with the specific qualities of sonic experience, geographers have also become interested in sound's role and influence in the practice of politics and the making of political spaces (Kanngieser, 2011;Pinkerton and Dodds, 2009;Revill, 2000aRevill, , 2000bWaitt, et al, 2014) However little sustained attention has been paid to the processes and practices by which sound actually makes space, shaping and transforming experiences of spatiality and providing the resources and affordances for diverse political practice and action in the process. This is remarkable to the extent that sonic space and the experience of sonic spatiality are often contrasted with visual and Cartesian spaces and spatialities (Smith, 1994;Bull, 2000;Wood et al, 2007) and that music and sound are widely recognised within social sciences and the humanities for their historically specific political effects (Born, 2013;Corbin, 1998;Smith M., 2004;Stern, 2003;Thompson, 2002).…”