Drawing on the concept of acoustemology, Feld (2012, 2015) conceptualizes sonic engagement as a relational, knowledge-producing process rather than a passive mechanism for data capture. Robinson (2020) expands this framework through an Indigenous studies lens, critiquing conventional academic and artistic approaches to sound as instances of “hungry listening”—a settler-colonial epistemology that reduces acoustic phenomena to extractable, categorizable, and possessable resources. In response to this extractive paradigm, Robinson advocates for a resonant listening practice, wherein researchers acknowledge both the inherent agency of sound and their own positionality as guests within the acoustic environment.
References
Feld, S. (2012). Sound and sentiment: Birds, weeping, poetics, and song in Kaluli expression (3rd ed., with a new introduction). Duke University Press.
Feld, S. (2015). Acoustemology. In D. Novak & M. Sakakeeny (Eds.), Keywords in sound (pp. 12–21). Duke University Press.
Robinson, D. (2020). Hungry listening: Resonant theory for Indigenous sound studies. University of Minnesota Press.