Introduction

Abstract

We are pleased collaborate with Ethnologies to present this special issue, "Exhibiting Soundscapes," comprising six articles that developed out of a research-creation and public outreach project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Exhibiting Sound (exhibitingsound.ca). Exhibiting Sound is an instance of applied ethnomusicology, "the approach guided by principles of social responsibility, which extends the usual academic goal of broadening and deepening knowledge and understanding toward solving concrete problems and toward working both inside and beyond typical academic contexts" (ICTM 2017). Rather than looking at music only as an object of study, we also engage it as a transformative agent (De Nora 2000) and a "social technology" (Frishkopf et al 2016(Frishkopf et al , 2017, a tool for change and theoretical praxis (Diamond 2011:1). Through the multiple components of Exhibiting Sound, scholars, artists, activists, educators, radio producers, heritage and art professionals and others gathered together to consider (and create) ways in which mediated sound can be presented in a social space-real or virtual-for educational or aesthetic experience, as well as the sociopolitical conditions and ramifications of such presentations.