Sound Ethnography

Anthropology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Powell ◽  
Walter Gershon

Often referred to as sonic ethnography, sound ethnography is the methodological, theoretical, epistemological, and ontological study of the sonic and its relationship to society, culture, and ecology. Sounds have, in fact, always been part of ethnographies, as sensations, understandings, artistic nonartistic expressions, recordings, and film/video and multimedia as technologies developed alongside ethnography and other methodologies. However, despite many ethnographic forms that attend to constructions of sound, such as ethnomusicology, sonic ethnography is a relatively new and still emerging methodology. The study of sound is multidisciplinary, informed by anthropology; sociology; ethnomusicology; acoustics; history; philosophy; sociology; medical studies; architecture; cultural geography; natural and physical sciences; performance and media studies; cultural studies; visual, performing, and mixed-media arts; and education research. Due to such interdisciplinarity, sound ethnography varies widely in terms of methods, theories, and practices. Sound ethnographies also differ in the purposes and conceptualizations of sound and study. They need not focus on organized sounds such as talk and music. They might also focus on emergent or sonic phenomena such as echoes and reverberations; ambient, found, or naturally occurring sounds in builtscapes or landscapes; music; sonic technologies; or even silence. Regardless of focus, sound ethnographers tend to examine the sonic in relation to social and/or environmental structures and patterns—not just how sound reflects such phenomena but, importantly, how it produces them. While ethnography has principally been a literary genre in the humanities and a qualitative research genre in the social sciences, a sound ethnography might be both conducted and presented in multiple ways, including writing, recording, composition, film, mixed media, art installation, and performance.

2012 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 298-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Alexander Bentley ◽  
Michael J. O’Brien

Abstract There is a long and rich tradition in the social sciences of using models of collective behavior in animals as jumping-off points for the study of human behavior, including collective human behavior. Here, we come at the problem in a slightly different fashion. We ask whether models of collective human behavior have anything to offer those who study animal behavior. Our brief example of tipping points, a model first developed in the physical sciences and later used in the social sciences, suggests that the analysis of human collective behavior does indeed have considerable to offer [Current Zoology 58 (2): 298–306, 2012].


1980 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Markham Berry

Professionals who work in the social and physical sciences and who have a serious commitment to the Bible have, in a sense, two data bases. To integrate them is a difficult task. We are pressed to bring them both into focus by the holistic thrust of the Bible as well as by the penchant of our minds to synthesize. To do this effectively we need simple but not simplistic models. Our integration must further be comprehensive, not partial, basic, not peripheral. This article describes a method of doing this kind of integrative work. Initially, four fundamental criteria are presented. In the second section the basic methodology is worked out, and in the third, some primary themes are described and illustrated around which this particular integrative system works.


1951 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 486-519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela N. Wrinch

In the Soviet Union, views on all intellectual subjects—the social sciences, philosophy, and even the biological and physical sciences—are frequently regarded as expressions of political views. As a consequence, all intellectual fields are considered appropriate arenas for the struggle against “reaction” and other supposed manifestations of “bourgeois” ideology. To consider science a-political and supra-national, or to speak approvingly of “world science” or “world culture,” is to subscribe to the “bourgeois” ideology of “cosmopolitism”—an ideology which is assumed by virtue of its universalist emphasis to deprecate the contributions to culture made by individual nations.


1984 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 59-73
Author(s):  
W. Newton-Smith

A series of lectures organized in part by the Society for Applied Philosophy and entitled ‘Philosophy and Practice’ is presumably aimed at displaying the practical implications of philosophical doctrines and/or applying philosophical skills to practical questions. The topic of this paper, the role of interests in science, certainly meets the first condition. For as will be argued there are a number of theses concerning the role of interests in science which have considerable implications for how one should see the scientific enterprise in general and in particular for how one assesses the claim that science ought to be accorded its priviliged position in virtue of its results and/or methods And in view of the respect and resources accorded to science what could be of greater practical interest? It remains the case, however, that my interest may seem the inverse of that of the organizers of this series. For in looking at the role of interest in science, one is examining, so to speak, the extent to which the sphere of the practical determines what goes on in science. One is exploring ways in which the non-scientific impinges on the scientific. While my primary focus will be on the physical sciences, it will be argued that there is a significant difference between them and the social sciences; a difference which renders the social sciences intrinsically liable to penetration from outside. As will be seen, some of the particular arguments for this conclusion make pressing the question: what about philosophy? The answer, it will be concluded, is that philosophy is insulated from external influences to a considerable extent. In that lies both its importance and an explanation as to why much of it has little practical application.


1984 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 59-73
Author(s):  
W. Newton-Smith

A series of lectures organized in part by the Society for Applied Philosophy and entitled ‘Philosophy and Practice’ is presumably aimed at displaying the practical implications of philosophical doctrines and/or applying philosophical skills to practical questions. The topic of this paper, the role of interests in science, certainly meets the first condition. For as will be argued there are a number of theses concerning the role of interests in science which have considerable implications for how one should see the scientific enterprise in general and in particular for how one assesses the claim that science ought to be accorded its priviliged position in virtue of its results and/or methods And in view of the respect and resources accorded to science what could be of greater practical interest? It remains the case, however, that my interest may seem the inverse of that of the organizers of this series. For in looking at the role of interest in science, one is examining, so to speak, the extent to which the sphere of the practical determines what goes on in science. One is exploring ways in which the non-scientific impinges on the scientific. While my primary focus will be on the physical sciences, it will be argued that there is a significant difference between them and the social sciences; a difference which renders the social sciences intrinsically liable to penetration from outside. As will be seen, some of the particular arguments for this conclusion make pressing the question: what about philosophy? The answer, it will be concluded, is that philosophy is insulated from external influences to a considerable extent. In that lies both its importance and an explanation as to why much of it has little practical application.


2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 567-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Beck

ArgumentFriedrich August von Hayek (1899–1992) is mainly known for his defense of free-market economics and liberalism. His views on science – more specifically on the methodological differences between the physical sciences on the one hand, and evolutionary biology and the social sciences on the other – are less well known. Yet in order to understand, and properly evaluate Hayek's political position, we must look at the theory of scientific method that underpins it. Hayek believed that a basic misunderstanding of the discipline of economics and the complex phenomena with which it deals produced misconceptions concerning its method and goals, which led in turn to the adoption of dangerous policies. The objective of this article is to trace the development of Hayek's views on the nature of economics as a scientific discipline and to examine his conclusions concerning the scope of economic prediction. In doing so, I will first show that Hayek's interest in the natural sciences (especially biology), as well as his interest in epistemology, were central to his thought, dating back to his formative years. I will then emphasize the important place of historical analysis in Hayek's reflections on methodology and examine the reasons for his strong criticism of positivism and socialism. Finally, in the third and fourth sections that constitute the bulk of this article, I will show how Hayek's understanding of the data and goal of the social sciences (which he distinguished from those of the physical sciences), culminated in an analogy that sought to establish economics and evolutionary biology as exemplary complex sciences. I will challenge Hayek's interpretation of this analogy through a comparison with Darwin's views inThe Origin of Species, and thus open a door to re-evaluating the theoretical foundations of Hayek's political claims.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margreth Lünenborg ◽  
Tanja Maier

This editorial delivers an introduction to the thematic <em>Media and Communication </em>issue on “The Turn to Affect and Emotion in Media Studies”. The social and cultural formation of affect and emotion has been of central interest to social science-based emotion research as well as to affect studies, which are mainly grounded in cultural studies. Media and communication scholars, in turn, have especially focused on how emotion and affect are produced by media, the way they are communicated through media, and the forms of emotion audiences develop during the use of media. Distinguishing theoretical lines of emotion theory in social sciences and diverse traditions of affect theory, we reflect on the need to engage more deeply with affect and emotion as driving forces in contemporary media and society. This thematic issue aims to add to ongoing affect studies research and to existing emotion research within media studies. A special emphasis will be placed on exploring structures of difference and power produced in and by media in relation to affect and emotion.


2009 ◽  
Vol 08 (01) ◽  
pp. C05 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Trench

The Masters (MSc) in Science Communication at Dublin City University (Ireland)
draws on expertise from several disciplines in human and physical sciences.
The programme takes a broad view of communication that includes the various
kinds of interaction between institutions of science and of society, as well
as the diverse means of exchanging information and ideas. Nearly 200 students
from a wide variety of backgrounds have completed the programme since its
start in 1996, and they work in many different types of employment, from
information and outreach services, to science centres, to publishing and
journalism. Through the programme, and in the dissertation in particular,
students are encouraged to reflect critically on the place and performance
of science in society, and on relations between the cultures of natural sciences
and of humanities and social sciences.


Philosophy ◽  
1945 ◽  
Vol 20 (75) ◽  
pp. 3-16
Author(s):  
A. D. Ritchie

There is a short answer to the question, whether scientific method can be applied to the study of the social relations of men, or, whether social sciences are possible; it is that these sciences exist and are in fact among the most ancient. Their success has perhaps been less startling than that of the physical sciences and they have perhaps been pursued with less enthusiasm. But there are reasons for this inherent in the nature of the social sciences, as I shall try to show.


1942 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 99-101
Author(s):  
Lillian Moore

At the present time mathematics for defense is the primary aim of the alert teacher of mathematics. Teachers must engage enthusiastically in the national civilian defense training program. The secondary-school teacher of the social sciences is in teres ted principally in democratic principles, the development of loyalty and cooperation as citizens of a representative democracy. The teacher of the physical sciences is interested in giving students technical knowledge which will enable them to work intelligently in airplane factories, hospitals, shipyards, at the drafting board, on the assembly line, typing, filing, or to prepare for active duty in the army or navy. The teacher of mathematics should realize the importance of mathematical training in the defense program.


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