This volume approaches the issue of ambient sound through the ethnographic exploration of different cultural contexts including Italy, India, Egypt, France, Ethiopia, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, and Japan. It examines social, religious, and aesthetic conceptions of sound environments, what types of action or agency are attributed to them, and what bodies of knowledge exist concerning them. Contributors shed new light on these sensory environments by focusing not only on their form and internal dynamics, but also on their wider social and cultural environment. The multimedia documents of this volume may be consulted at the address: milson.fr/routledge_media.
Introduction: Multiple Listenings Christine Guillebaud
Part I: Listening into Others
1. Noising the City Olivier Féraud
2. Sounds of Hell and Sounds of Eden Anne Damon-Guillot
3. An “Obscene” Calling Tripta Chandola
Part II: Sound Displays and Social Effects
4. Standing out from the Crowd Christine Guillebaud
5. Melodic Refrains in Japanese Train Stations Pierre Manea
Part III: Sound Identity and Locality
6. Acoustic Communities Represented Heikki Uimonen
7. Mics in the Ears Vincent Battesti
8. Mapping out the Sounds of Urban Transformation Iñigo Sánchez
9. Listening to the City Claire Guiu
Part IV: Sound Arts and Anthropology
10. Not Just Tones, Noises Too! Jean-Charles Depaule
11. Tribute To a Footbridge Vincent Rioux
Afterword: The Sonic Attunement of Social Life Jean-Paul Thibaud
Biography
Christine Guillebaud is a senior researcher at the French National Centre for Scientifi c Research (CNRS), and member of the Centre for Ethnology and Comparative Sociology (CREM-LESC), based at the University of Paris Nanterre, France.
"Toward an Anthropology of Ambient Sound is a nice and welcome addition to a steadily growing corps of literature on sounds in and of the city. As scholarly reflection and theoretical deepening are profoundly important for me (and, I think, for the entire field of sound studies as well), the contributions written by Chandola, Guillebaud, Battesti, and Thibaud stand out as they go beyond the mere noticing of specific sonic events."
- Marcel Cobussen, Journal of Sonic Studies