Ocoee Becoming: Visceral Sonic Mapping Toward an Intradisciplinary Social Studies

• In Event: Nomadic Visual Inquiries: Explorations in Visual Methodologies Across Disciplines and Paradigms

Abstract

Purposes
Thinking with vibrant matter (Bennett, 2010) and social studies as intradisciplinary (Adams & Kerr, 2021), I aim to investigate settler colonialism, capitalism, disciplining, and ecology in Ocoee, land of the Cherokee, utilizing visceral sonic mapping (find at:https://bit.ly/OcoeeBecoming)
Theoretical Framework
Vibrant matter (Bennett, 2010) recognizes the agency of matter (p. viii), rather than matter as passive. Bennett builds vibrant matter from Latour’s theorization of actant (p. viii) and Deleuze and Guattari’s concept assemblage (p. 23-24). Vibrant matter assumes that there is not a Cartesian binary of human/non-human (Braidotti, 2013), and instead, that we are in relation with other matter. This concept relates to my aim towards an intradisciplinary social studies (Adams & Kerr, 2020). An intradisciplinary social studies recognizes social studies disciplines (i.e. economics, history, geography) are constituted as “immanent to one another” (p. 7).
Methods
I used visceral sonic mapping (Duffy et al, 2016), an analytic method of sound, that focuses on the “gut” responses of participants (p. 52), particularly how space, bodies, and affect are interwoven. This included listening, recording, and more listening. While I had intended to focus my attention on just the crowd, after several listenings, the materiality of the performance of rafting began to affect me. But it was not just the verbal commands and crowd response, it was the assemblage: the intention of the commands /disciplining of rafters / paddles slicing (or not) through water / the rapids’ responses to the counting, bodies, and boats. Using Audacity, I mixed, layered, spliced, cut, and enhanced the mapping. Each choice depicted, erased, and/or marginalised some components of the visceral sonic mapping (Rose, 2016).
Methods
Some context of this mapping includes: Ocoee / bodies on rubber rafts / voice memo on an iPhone / viewers on sidewalks, standing, sitting, waiting / rocks and concrete / rushing water, stabbed by paddles, stopped by damming / sunshine, clouds, and thick, muggy air wrap around / June / loose logs and debris. Cherokee land, the United States Forest Service, gender, capitalism, joy, and outdoor recreation are also entangled in this mapping.
Results
The water moves between rocks, but is mediated by the engineering of the course (i.e. concrete). Humans have attempted to discipline it. However, the water also acts on humans and other matter. Rafters count, stroke, pull, swim, fall -all of this choreography with the water, as the water exerts its own force, working with the rocks to create rapids and opportunity for possibility.
Scholarly Significance
This visceral sonic mapping becomes important for engaging with the emergent quality of place through sound (Lane, 2016), in a colonized space. As Flint (2021) writes, “listening offers a critical entry point to questions of voice, place, ethics, and knowledge through a practice of listening and attuning to the resonances of more-than-human sounds” (p. 6). This is particularly imperative for social studies education.

Author

• Morgan Paige Tate, University of Georgia - Athens