The sound of settler colonialism: Lauren Rosati, ‘“Civilizing” Noise: An Introduction to the Special Issue on Sound, Colonialism, and Power’, The Journal of Media Art Study and Theory, 2, 2021, pp. 3-14 | settler colonial studies blog

The sound of settler colonialism: Lauren Rosati, ‘“Civilizing” Noise: An Introduction to the Special Issue on Sound, Colonialism, and Power’, The Journal of Media Art Study and Theory, 2, 2021, pp. 3-14

16Feb22

Excerpt: This special issue of MAST: The Journal of Media Art Study and Theory focuses on sound as a vector of colonial power. It explores listening as a form of witness or surveillance to sonic cultures, especially through the fields of ethnography and acoustic ecology, which studies the mediated sonic relationship between humans and their environment. Listening as a method of appropriation, rather than observation, is a central concern; Robinson has recently called this “hungry listening” in specific reference to settler colonial forms of perception that seek to “civilize” or “settle” Indigenous sounds (38–40). The journal issue also considers the role of sound technologies and creative practices in perpetuating and reproducing colonial power relations. Recording media, including reel-to-reel tape recorders and storage devices such as shellac discs, are investigated as colonial documents, while creative techniques such as field recording and sound mapping are examined as both preservative of the soundscapes they catalogue and at the same potentially aimed toward a colonialist extraction or salvage of sonic material.

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