Can we listen to what’s not yet there? Vocal and sonic methods as pathways of possibility

• In Event: Culture, Narrative and the Sensory in Research

Abstract

Recent years have seen a generative and thought-provoking proliferation of sonic and sensory approaches to criminological inquiry (eg. Herrity et al., 2021; Herrity, 2024; Crockett Thomas et al., 2020; 2021). This attention to the sonic realm has also opened up new possibilities for theorising what it means to make music and sonic art in and around carceral spaces. However, at the same time it has been recognized that such prison-based arts programmes can be co-opted to sanitise or mask the harms and injustices of incarceration – a critique described as ‘decorative justice’ (Cheliotis, 2014).

Through examples of sonically-focused research and practice from prison contexts in several countries, including the Distant Voices project in Scotland and the Prisons of Note project in Norway, this presentation will explore how the shared creation of music, spoken word poetry, podcasts and other sonic artefacts can play a critical and relational role, and the extent to which it is possible to navigate the complex ethical tensions involved in such practices.

Recognising the prevalence of highly individualized narratives around crime, punishment and rehabilitation, this presentation will also ask whether collaborative creativity through sound and music in carceral spaces might allow the emergence of work that expands, complicates and pluralises these linear, one-dimensional stories. Can listening help us access new speculative and prefigurative perspectives? Can we use Tim Ingold’s conceptualisation of paying attention as ‘stretching toward’ (2021) in order to tune in what’s not yet there – and in so doing, to create new possible futures?

Author

• Lucy Cathcart Froden, University of Oslo / Malmö University