ETHNOGRAPHY / LISTENING / RECORDING. SOUND ENVIRONMENTS OF THE MALAWIAN NORTH AND BEYOND

Piotr Cichocki

Published: 2019-12-03

Vol. 39 (2018)

ETHNOGRAPHY / LISTENING / RECORDING. SOUND ENVIRONMENTS OF THE MALAWIAN NORTH AND BEYOND

Piotr Cichocki

Abstract

Anthropological writings barely comment on practices of listening and recording that are in fact essential for ethnographic fieldwork. They constitute the foundations of encountering the local environments approached by ethnographers. This research practice recontextualizes recorded sound in the new settings of academic or commercial repositories. Two case studies from fieldwork in Northern Malawi elucidate ways in which reflective listening and the utilization of technology constitute knowledge generative processes. The example of the recordings entitled “Bicycling through Chibavi” concerns questions of distance and engagement during fieldwork. The case of an experimental recording of vimbuza music constitutes a methodological project of a “situationist event”. The project demonstrates how the subjects of the research performatively navigate between local sound environments.

Keywords:

anthropology of sound, sound studies, technology, archive, Malawi, Africa

Most read articles by the same author(s)

Piotr Cichocki, INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE ETHNOGRAPHIC EAR , Ethnologia Polona: Vol. 39 (2018): ETHNOGRAPHIC EAR

Download files

pdf

Citation rules

Cichocki, P. (2019). ETHNOGRAPHY / LISTENING / RECORDING. SOUND ENVIRONMENTS OF THE MALAWIAN NORTH AND BEYOND. Ethnologia Polona, 39, 109–126. Retrieved from https://journals.iaepan.pl/ethp/article/view/2006

Cited by / Share

References

B a n k s M. 2001. Visual Methods in Social Research. London: Sage.
B e n d i n e r -V i a n i G. 2005. Walking, Emotion, and Dwelling: Guided Tours in Prospect Heights,
Brooklyn. Space and Culture 8 (4), 459–471.
C i c h o c k i P. 2018. Tłumacze, Imitatorzy i Afrykańscy Proletariusze. Jednodniówka Kosmopolitania 1.
C i c h o c k i P. 2019. Production of Sound, Production of Knowledge. Central Africa, Central Europe,
Global Networks. Seismograf (special issue: Sonic Argumentation II) 2.
C i c h o c k i P. and Wi e c z o r e k M. 2018. 600 Uderzeń Na Minutę. Rozmowa z Piotrem Cichockim.
Dwutygodnik, 2018.
https://www.dwutygodnik.com/artykul/8099-600-uderzen-na-minute.html (accessed 01.09.2019).
De C e r t e a u M. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
De b o r d G. 1957. Report on the Construction of Situations. (pamphlet).
De b o r d G. 2010. The Society of the Spectacle. Detroit: Black & Red.
De g e r J. 2013. In-Between. In A. Schneider and C. Wright (eds.), Anthropology and Art Practice.
London: Bloomsbury, 105–13.
De l e u z e G. and G u a t t a r i F. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
De r r i d a J. 1996. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Di b b e n N. and H a a k e A. B. 2013. Music and the Construction of Space in Office-Based Work
Settings. In G. Born (ed.), Music, Sound and Space, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
151–168.
F a u b i o n J. D. and M a r c u s G. E. 2009. Fieldwork Is Not What It Used to Be: Learning Anthropology’s
Method in a Time of Transition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
F e l d S. 1982. Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression. Durham:
Duke University Press.
F o u c a u l t M. 1977. The Archaeology of Knowledge. New York: Pantheon Books.
F r i e d s o n S. M. 1996. Dancing Prophets: Musical Experience in Tumbuka Healing. Chicago Studies in
Ethnomusicology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
G i n s b u r g F. 1995. Mediating Culture: Indigenous Media, Ethnographic Film, and the Production
of Identity. In Deveraux L. and Hillman R. (eds.) Fields of Vision: Essays in Film Studies, Visual
Anthropology and Photography, Berkeley: University of California Press, 256–290.
Ha b e r m a s J. 1987. Knowledge and Human Interests. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Ha s t r u p K. 1995. A Passage to Anthropology: Between Experience and Theory. New York: Routledge.
I n g o l d T. 2007. Against Soundscape. In T. Ingold Autumn Leaves: Sound and the Environment in
Artistic Practice. Paris: Double Entendre.
I n g o l d T. 2016. Lines: A Brief History. London: Routledge.
Ma s s u m i B. 2015. Politics of Affect. Cambridge and Malden: Polity.
Mi l l e r B. 2017. Kukaya and Tonga Boys: A RootsWorld Review. Roots World.
http://www.rootsworld.com/reviews/1000hz-17.shtml (accessed 01.09.2019).
No v a k D. 2013. Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation. Durham: Duke University Press.
No v a k D. and S a k a k e e n y M. (eds.) 2015. Keywords in Sound. Durham and London: Duke University
Press.
P e t t a n S. and Ti t o n J. T. (eds.) 2015. The Oxford Handbook of Applied Ethnomusicology. Oxford and
New York: Oxford University Press.
P i n k S. 2001. Doing Visual Ethnography: Images, Media, and Representation in Research. London and
Thousand Oaks: Sage.
R a b i n o w P. 1977. Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco. Berkeley: University of California Press.
R i c e T. 2003. Time, Place, and Metaphor in Musical Experience and Ethnography. Ethnomusicology
47 (2), 151–179.
R o u c h J. and F e l d . S. 2003. Ciné-Ethnography. Visible Evidence, v. 13. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
S c h n e i d e r A. and Wr i g h t C. (eds.) 2010. Between Art and Anthropology: Contemporary Ethnographic
Practice. Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers.
S c h n e i d e r A. and Wr i g h t C. (eds.) 2013. Anthropology and Art Practice. New York: Bloomsbury
Academic.
S c h u m a k e r L. 2001. Africanizing Anthropology: Fieldwork, Networks, and the Making of Cultural
Knowledge in Central Africa. Durham: Duke University Press.
S l o t e r d i j k P. 2016. Spheres: Volume 3: Foams Plural Spherology. South Pasadena: Semiotext.
S o k o B. 2014. Vimbuza: The Healing Dance of Northern Malawi. Zomba: Imabili Indigenous Knowledge
Publications.
S t e r n e J. 2015. Hearing. In D. Novak and M. Sakakeeny (eds.) Keywords in Sound, edited by David
Novak and Matt. Durham: Duke University Press, 65–77.
S t o l e r A. L. 2009. Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
T h omp s o n E. A. 2008. The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening
in America, 1900–1933. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Tu r k l e S. 2008. The Inner History of Devices. Cambridge: MIT Press.
We h e l i y e A. G. 2005. Phonographies Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity. Durham: Duke University
Press. Google Scholar