Polisonics. Collective Listening and the Politics of Sound

Bringing together contributors with backgrounds in ethnography, theatre, design, music, and sound, Polisonics: Collective Listening and the Politics of Sound demonstrates the importance of sound in design and how the sonic offers alternatives to dominant, singular, and technologically determined narratives.

From sonic street interventions to rural field recording, water fountains to community listening sessions, and Palestinian Hip-Hop to sound for VR, this book foregrounds participatory modes of making and collective engagement, particularly those rooted in musical cultures. It examines how relational approaches to sound can help reshape paradigms and challenge systemic inequalities, build communities, and resist structural injustice.

With chapters on areas including audio description, sound systems, and the use of machine listening as a tool for immigration control, Polisonics will be of interest to activists, academics, and musicians as well as those studying and working in sound design, ethnography, social justice, and theatre.