On listening

The practice of listening is one that has been receiving increasing attention from a number of disciplinary fields in recent years. On Listening presents a unique collection of forty international perspectives drawn from anthropology, bioacoustics, geography, literature, community activism and conflict mediation, media and cultural studies, sociology, religion, philosophy, art history, and the sonic arts including music, ethnomusicology and field recording.

Each contribution has been specifically commissioned for this book, which has been organised into four thematic sections, “Listening Perspectives”, “Listening Devices”, “Listening to Self and Other” and “Listening Spaces”. Each section begins with an introduction that contextualises the individual essays which have themselves been arranged so that a narrative argument can emerge across the different accounts. In commissioning the essays, the co-editors sought to balance subject, tone and analytical approach.