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Questioning Acoustemology: an interview with Steven Feld

Sep 12, 20244 min read

Questioning Acoustemology: an interview with Steven Feld

Bibliography

Rice, T., & Feld, S. (2021). Questioning Acoustemology: An interview with Steven Feld. Sound Studies, 7(1), 119–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/20551940.2020.1831154

Abstract

In this conversation transcript, Tom Rice asks Steve Feld a series of questions about ‘acoustemology’, a term Steve coined and which has become a key concept in sound studies. Referring to ‘acoustic epistemology’, a ‘knowing-with and knowing-through the audible’, acoustemology emerged in the context of Steve’s work on the Kaluli of Papua New Guinea and their intricate knowledge of the sounds of their rainforest environment (Feld 2015, 12). It has since been applied by Steve, and many others, in studies of sound in a wide variety of settings. Tom asks questions that have arisen as he tries to explore and clarify the implications of the term. For instance, are acoustemologies invariably culturally embedded, or can they also be understood to emerge independently of culture? To what extent are acoustemologies shaped by individual and personal preferences, experiences and abilities? Is it possible for one acoustemology to end and another begin or do acoustemologies merely shift in terms of the sounds to which they are orientated? Answering with illustrations from his own intellectual journey, Steve presents acoustemology as an open-ended concept which is generative rather than prescriptive and which invites ongoing empirical research and interdisciplinary discussion.

Notes

Questioning Acoustemology: an interview with Steven Feld

  • Go to annotation“My first question is really about the relationship between acoustemology and culture, because I wonder to what extent, even hypothetically, you can have acoustemology independently of culture, and whether a way of knowing through sound isn’t something more fundamental, almost instinctive?” (Rice and Feld, 2021, p. 120)
  • Go to annotation“So, to what extent can people be said to have personal acoustemologies? What is the relationship between individual and cultural acoustemology? Where do they branch off from one another, if at all, in your mind?” (Rice and Feld, 2021, p. 121)

Go to annotation“Can we find some way to sell it with a windfarm?” And I was amazed. I didn’t know how he knew about windfarms.” (Rice and Feld, 2021, p. 125)

What’s up with this Steve Feld?

  • Go to annotation“Yes, so, on that note, how do you choose to conceptualise in your own mind the acoustemological change that has happened? Do you feel that it is a question of loss of, say, the sonic way of knowing that you encountered in the 70s? Do you prefer to conceptualise it in terms of change or do you see it more as a layering: so one being built on another with an underlying constant? What is your preferred way of considering it?” (Rice and Feld, 2021, p. 125)

Go to annotation“Bosavi people tend to narrate their historical experience in terms of loss.” (Rice and Feld, 2021, p. 125)

For now there seems little criticality towards the own practice.

Go to annotation“But, just to give you an example, Gaso, the guy who was my drum teacher in the 70s and 80s, the best drummer in Bosavi, his father Kiliya, was a person who made first contact. So, this is an interesting family.” (Rice and Feld, 2021, p. 126)

  • Go to annotation“to what extent do you think that that sonic conspicuousness is really essential to the development of acoustemology or is it just that acoustemology becomes more noticeable in those contexts? Can you have an inconspicuous acoustemology, for instance?” (Rice and Feld, 2021, p. 127)

Go to annotation“we have to go back to spectralism as an approach to the senses, linking sound and image.” (Rice and Feld, 2021, p. 128)

Go to annotation“TR: Are you referring too to “non-representational theory” and “more-than-representational theory” here? (e.g. Thrift 2007; Lorimer 2005). SF: Yes. Non-representational theory and also “affect theory”” (Rice and Feld, 2021, p. 128)

Missing accountability seems to be baked in to his practice. See page 129 for more info.

Multi-modality might not just democratize the way ethnography is produced, but also consumed. Thus, a critical reflection on this practice as well as how it makes research accessible must be present. It’s way easier to listen to a CD with “exotic” singers then reading a paper on it. It also makes context be lost easier.

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