scholarly journals "Well, listen ... " : acoustic community on Toronto Island.

Author(s):  
Charlotte Scott

"Well, listen. .. "is a sound composition about the acoustic community of Toronto Island and Toronto Harbour. The project explores how people create and experience acoustic community, how perceptions of the soundscape are related to attitudes about nature and culture, and how power relationships are articulated through sound. The project is based in environmental cultural studies and in sound ecology, notably the work of Williams (1973), Schafer (1977), Westerkamp (2002) and Truax (1984), and concludes seven months of soundwalks, interviews, composition, editing and field research. Participants discussed the soundscape of Toronto Island, noise pollution in Toronto Harbour and the relationship between sound, community and ecology. These interviews were edited and re-assembled in a manner inspired by the contrapuntal voice compositions of Glenn Gould. Field recordings reflect the complex mix of natural, social, and industrial sounds that make up the soundscape of the harbour, and document the acts of sound walking and deep listening that are the core methods of soundscape research. The composition creates an imaginary aural space that integrates the voices and reflections of the Island's acoustic community with the contested soundscape of their island home. The project paper outlines the theory and methods that informed the sound composition, and further explores the political economy of noise pollution, especially in relation to the Docks nightclub dispute and to current research in sound ecology.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Scott

"Well, listen. .. "is a sound composition about the acoustic community of Toronto Island and Toronto Harbour. The project explores how people create and experience acoustic community, how perceptions of the soundscape are related to attitudes about nature and culture, and how power relationships are articulated through sound. The project is based in environmental cultural studies and in sound ecology, notably the work of Williams (1973), Schafer (1977), Westerkamp (2002) and Truax (1984), and concludes seven months of soundwalks, interviews, composition, editing and field research. Participants discussed the soundscape of Toronto Island, noise pollution in Toronto Harbour and the relationship between sound, community and ecology. These interviews were edited and re-assembled in a manner inspired by the contrapuntal voice compositions of Glenn Gould. Field recordings reflect the complex mix of natural, social, and industrial sounds that make up the soundscape of the harbour, and document the acts of sound walking and deep listening that are the core methods of soundscape research. The composition creates an imaginary aural space that integrates the voices and reflections of the Island's acoustic community with the contested soundscape of their island home. The project paper outlines the theory and methods that informed the sound composition, and further explores the political economy of noise pollution, especially in relation to the Docks nightclub dispute and to current research in sound ecology.


2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 261-271
Author(s):  
Daniel McLoughlin

In this interview, Vicki Kirby discusses her research into the relationship between nature and culture, focusing in particular on her recent edited collection, What If Culture Was Nature All Along? The volume appears in the ‘New Materialisms’ series, and so the interview begins by situating the collection with respect to the recent materialist turn in social theory. Kirby discusses the influence of deconstruction on her thought, and the way that she draws upon Derrida to think through recent research in the life sciences and its implications for understanding the relationship between matter, life, and communication. She also goes into the political implications of her work and the relationship between biopolitics and biodeconstruction.


Politics ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-30
Author(s):  
Robin Gray

This article concerns the relationship between policy and voter elasticity on either side of the political spectrum as an explanation of the left's post-war political failure. The core contention is that left-oriented voters are more responsive to slight deviations in policy. This is used to explain partially Labour's post-war failure to dominate power even when the ‘left's vote’ was over 50 per cent.


Author(s):  
Emad Abu-Shanab ◽  
Raya Al-Dalou'

The relationship between citizens and governments is the core of e-government. E-participation is one of the political dimensions of e-government which focuses on informing, consulting, involving, collaborating, and empowering citizens to take part of the decision making process. This study adopted a framework for the five levels of e-participation and tried to test such model empirically using 400 responses from Jordanians. The study tried to measure Jordanian perceptions towards e-participation initiatives and practices in Jordan, and to measure the achievements on each level as perceived and reported by subjects. Results indicated that the highest perceived level was e-involving, and the lowest was e-consulting. Also, the CFA results indicated a distorted distribution of items between the major levels. Results of other issues explored are discussed further in this study.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Eriseld Kalemaj

This paper has in its focus the notion of 'Sovereign'. The discussion will be conducted within the "School of Natural Law", which we will focus on two representatives; Thomas Hobbes and Samuel Pufendorf. Through a comparative philosophical analysis, we are going to stop on the basics, the genesis of sovereign power. Political philosophy in the context of finding the source of sovereign power is a problem in the landmark of the unsolvable. ” Scool of Natural Law” referring to the natural condition has the solution to this problem. Compare lines will start from this premise, to know after, how the reason goas towards two different concepts of “Social Contract”. Contract which generates sovreigen person, it defines the nature and content of the power of this person. At this discourse, social contract as the core hub of transition, conversion to the state of nature in a civil context is rolling between the political and juridical character. Discussion, which essentially make us know the nature of the relationship between the Sovereign and members of society, sovereign and state, the member of society between each other. In other words, we will see how the political - legal forms of organization, the way of governing is determined by the nature of initial social contract


1983 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Chossudovsky

This article applies Marx's abstract subdivision of social consumption to the prevailing patterns of capital accumulation in the Third World. Built-in scarcities in the availability of necessary consumer goods, alongside patterns of overconsumption and social waste by the upper-income groups, are conducive to conditions of mass poverty, malnutrition, and disease that coexist with small pockets of social privilege and affluence. Malnutrition and ill health must be understood and analyzed in relation to the dual and divided structure of social consumption: necessities of life as opposed to luxury and semi-luxury goods. The relationship between capital accumulation, the distribution of money income, and patterns of malnutrition and ill health is analyzed. It is shown that patterns of malnutrition and ill health are socially differentiated, and the core disease pattern in Third World social formations is discussed in relation to the material and social conditions of life which generate ill health and which underlie particular patterns of peripheral capital accumulation. The study focuses on empirical procedures for analyzing the relationship between levels of money income and levels of calorie and protein intake. An appendix outlines a methodology for estimating undernourishment in urban areas from household budget surveys.


2018 ◽  
pp. 1255-1272
Author(s):  
Emad Abu-Shanab ◽  
Raya Al-Dalou'

The relationship between citizens and governments is the core of e-government. E-participation is one of the political dimensions of e-government which focuses on informing, consulting, involving, collaborating, and empowering citizens to take part of the decision making process. This study adopted a framework for the five levels of e-participation and tried to test such model empirically using 400 responses from Jordanians. The study tried to measure Jordanian perceptions towards e-participation initiatives and practices in Jordan, and to measure the achievements on each level as perceived and reported by subjects. Results indicated that the highest perceived level was e-involving, and the lowest was e-consulting. Also, the CFA results indicated a distorted distribution of items between the major levels. Results of other issues explored are discussed further in this study.


Author(s):  
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde ◽  
Mirjam Künkler ◽  
Tine Stein

Is and can religion be seen as a foundation of the modern state? In this article Böckenförde discusses the relationship between state and religion while reviewing Hegel’s main writings on this question. Reconstructing Hegel’s concept of the state, Böckenförde points out that for Hegel, the state is simultaneously universal and historical. It is more than the political system or government—it is the polity in general and the structured form in which the people exist. Moreover, the state is the materialization of the ethical idea as such and the manifestation of how ‘truth’ in history became reality. In Hegel’s view, ‘truth’ is ultimately God’s will in the world. Further, for Hegel, state and religion are two forms of the same substance: reason. Morality and reason are closely intertwined in Hegel. Religion is a source of morality for the people, and the state and the Church are the institutional manifestations of reason. Böckenförde shows that Hegel identifies individual conscience as the core of each person’s freedom; however, Hegel denies a right to an aberrant conscience, indicating a very limited notion of freedom. Finally, Böckenförde discusses Hegel’s philosophy in light of the state today with its separation of state and religion. Since today’s state does not consider religion as part of its foundation, in Hegel’s view it would ‘stand freely in the air’. Böckenförde concludes, contrary to Hegel, that only the democratic process and the people’s agreement on the things that cannot be voted upon can form the basis of the state.


2015 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 5-8
Author(s):  
Tom Kohut

Sound is a political question of which the antagonisms of noise pollution are a concrete embodiment. The discourses of noise pollution tend to postulate noise as a toxin that is produced by our industrial societies and is difficult either to contain or even define precisely. Composer R. Murray Schafer contrasts this toxin with a sustaining nature, but ecological thought of the past decade suggests that nature is, in fact, unnatural. The field recordings of Chris Watson and Francisco López suggest that this natural perversity can indicate a new mode of sonic ecological sustainability.


Author(s):  
Ayelet Shachar

“There are some things that money can’t buy.” Is citizenship among them? This chapter explores this question by highlighting the core legal and ethical puzzles associated with the surge in cash-for-passport programs. The spread of these new programs is one of the most significant developments in citizenship practice in the past few decades. It tests our deepest intuitions about the meaning and attributes of the relationship between the individual and the political community to which she belongs. This chapter identifies the main strategies employed by a growing number of states putting their visas and passports “for sale,” selectively opening their otherwise bolted gates of admission to the high-net-worth individuals of the world. Moving from the positive to the normative, the discussion then elaborates the main arguments in favor of, as well as against, citizenship-for-sale. The discussion draws attention to the distributive and political implications of these developments, both locally and globally, and identifies the deeper forces at work that contribute to the perpetual testing, blurring, and erosion of the state-market boundary regulating access to membership.


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