Critical Race Studies into Soundscape Studies
Nimalan Yoganathan
In this video, Nimalan Yoganathan is a brown skinned person that presents in a room with a large wooden framed window and several art/paintings against a white wall. Yoganathan has medium length black hair and a short black goatee that connects to the mustache.
Unless indicated otherwise, the written descriptions were done by Nicholas Goberdhan from the Access-In-The-Making Lab, and the voiceovers were done by Jamilah Dei-Sharpe from the Respond to Crisis Team. Image descriptions are constructed based on how the participants identified themselves in their videos and in consultation with the AIM LAB. If you would like to make changes to any part of the description, please do not hesitate to email us at info@respondtocrisis.com.
Critical Race Studies into Soundscape Studies
with Nimalan Yoganathan
Nimalan Yoganathan is a PhD student in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University. Yoganathan’s research incorporates concepts from critical race studies into the field of soundscape studies.
In this video
Themes
Anti-Black racism
Indigeneity
Race, Media, Technology
Yoganathan offers examples of the ways that sound can be deployed in anti-racist and decolonial resistance.
Taking action
Incorporate critical and intersectional methodologies into sound and communication studies
Pay attention to the acoustic world — what can and cannot be heard
Ask yourself, what do social justice movements sound like?
Resources
Akiyama, Mitchell. (2015). Soundscapes of Canada and the politics of self-recognition. Sounding Out!
Chakravartty, Paul, Kuo, Rachel, Grubbs, Victoria, & McIlwain, Charlton. (2018). #CommunicationSoWhite. Journal of Communication, 68(1), 254-266.
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. (1997). Color-blind dreams and racial nightmares: Reconfiguring racism in the post-Civil-Rights era. In T. Morrison & C. B. Lacour (Eds.), Birth of a nation’hood. New York: Pantheon Books.
de Certeau, Michel. (1988). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Delaurenti, Christopher. (2015). Making activist sound. Leonardo Music Journal, 25(1), 93-99.
Jordan, Randolph. (2015). Unsettling the World Soundscape Project: The bell tower of False Creek, Vancouver. Sounding Out!
Martin, Allie. (2019). Hearing change in the chocolate city: Soundwalking as black feminist method. Sounding Out!
Maynard, Robyn, & Ritchie, Andrea. (2020). Black communities need support, not a Coronavirus police state. Vice.
Nardone, Michael. (2016). Skirmish at the oasis: On sonic disobedience. Leonardo Music Journal, 26(1), 92-96.
Quan, Douglas. (2020). Listen up: In these disquieting COVID-19 times, hushed cities are making a loud impression on our ears. The Toronto Star.
Quashie, Kevin. (2012). The sovereignty of quiet: Beyond resistance in black culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Rice, Tom. (2016). Sounds inside: Prison, prisoners and acoustical agency. Sound Studies, 2(1), 6-20.
Stadler, Gustavus. (2015). On whiteness and sound studies. Sounding Out!
Stoever, Jennifer. (2016). The sonic color line: Race and the cultural politics of listening. New York: NYU Press.
Walker, Erica. (2020). The depths of a quiet soundscape. Newcities.
Westerkamp, Hildegard. (2002). Linking soundscape composition and acoustic ecology. Organised Sound, 7(1), 51-6
Palestinian rapper Muqata’a samples the soundscapes of Israeli occupation