Voice as Action: Towards a Model for Analyzing the Dynamic Construction of Racialized Voice

Vocal timbre is commonly believed to be an unmanipulable attribute, akin to a sonic fingerprint. Because the voice arises from inside the body, quotidian discourse tends to refer to someone’s vocal sounds as inborn, natural, and true expressions of the person. What, then, are we to make of the common notion that a person’s race is audible in her voice? While it has been conclusively demonstrated that many of the physiognomic aspects historically employed as evidence of a person’s race—including skin color, hair texture, and dialect or accent —actually evidence nothing more than the construction of race according to the ideological values of beholders, vocal timbre continues to elude such deconstruction. Recent critical thought on the intermingling of the physical senses, including the so–called sensory turn in anthropology, “new materialist” philosophies, and recent advances in science, technology, sound studies, and media studies, underscores the need for scholarship that recognizes the voice and vocal categories as culturally conditioned material entities. Trends such as the metaphorical notion of “having voice” have to some degree obscured the material and multisensory aspects of voice. Conceived within the specific context of musicology and the general context of the humanities, this article seeks to demonstrate how the re–framing of voice implied by sensory and material inquiries redraws the topology of voice. I believe that this exercise may offer a deepened understanding of racial dynamics as they play out in our interactions with voice

The Race of Sound

In The Race of Sound Nina Sun Eidsheim traces the ways in which sonic attributes that might seem natural, such as the voice and its qualities, are socially produced. Eidsheim illustrates how listeners measure race through sound and locate racial subjectivities in vocal timbre—the color or tone of a voice. Eidsheim examines singers Marian Anderson, Billie Holiday, and Jimmy Scott as well as the vocal synthesis technology Vocaloid to show how listeners carry a series of assumptions about the nature of the voice and to whom it belongs. Outlining how the voice is linked to ideas of racial essentialism and authenticity, Eidsheim untangles the relationship between race, gender, vocal technique, and timbre while addressing an undertheorized space of racial and ethnic performance. In so doing, she advances our knowledge of the cultural-historical formation of the timbral politics of difference and the ways that comprehending voice remains central to understanding human experience, all the while advocating for a form of listening that would allow us to hear singers in a self-reflexive, denaturalized way

Stabilitetsanalyser og forebyggende tiltak mot skred i Bhutan

Bhutans geologi er preget av Himalaya-regionens karakteristiske skyveforkastninger og høye relieff. Den røffe topografien styrer de klimatiske. Bhutan har tropisk klima i sør og kaldere klima i nord. Kraftig forvitring av berggrunnen kombinert med alpine terrengformer gjør landet planleggingsmessig vanskelig for ingeniørgeologer. Skredsituasjonen i Bhutan er preget av hyppige utrasninger langs bratte fjellskråninger, skred utløst i perioder med kraftig nedbør og skred utløst i forbindelse med veiskjæringer langs fjellsidene. Landets beliggenhet innenfor en region med høy seismisk aktivitet står også i disfavør for stabiliteten av fjellskråningene. Kharbandi-skredet er én av tre større utrasninger som har gått langs hovedveien mellom Thimpu og Phuentsholing. Skredet er mer enn 15 år gammelt og ligger i en forvitret fyllittformasjon. Skjærstyrken og kornstørrelsen i dette materialet er klassifisert som løsmasser. Stabilitetsanalyser av skråningen gir lave sikkerhetsfaktorer helt ned mot 1. Skredet er idag et erosjonsskred med en retrogressiv skredmekanisme. Muligheten for dypere utrasninger er absolutt til stede da store variasjoner i nedbørsmengde endrer poretrykkene og grunnvannsnivået signifikant. Regneprogrammene Slide og Slope/W ble benyttet på skråningen , og deretter sammenlignet med hverandre både regnemessig og med hensyn til brukervennlighet. I utgangspunktet skulle også regneprogrammet Phase2 benyttes, men det viste seg umulig å anvende programmet på denne typen problemer. Phase2 er kun for bergrom. Bishop-metoden ble benyttet i beregningene og resulterte i generelt høyere sikkerhetsfaktorer i Slope/W sammenlignet med Slide. I brukervennlighet er Slide det lettest anvendelige regneprogrammet. Sikringstiltakene i Kharbandi-skredet bør bygge videre på de tiltak som allerede er igang, og i tillegg anbefales dreneringskonstruksjoner på overflaten og ev. inne i skråningen

The Power of Listening to Voices: An Interview with Nina Sun Eidsheim

On Thursday, May 20th 2021, Nina Sun Eidsheim delivered a keynote address as part of the 2021 Listening, Sound, Agency symposium. Titled “Re-writing Algorithms for Just Recognition: From Digital Aural Redlining to Accent Activism,” she argued that “voice- and listening technologies carry and reproduce the same social bias, discrimination, and racism […] as Kodak film and HP cameras [which] were calibrated for white skin colour.” Elaborating on this important research, Nina generously answered some questions about her current projects and interests, providing poignant backstory to her keynote, and inviting all readers to events at her UCLA PEER Lab in the next weeks and months

Eccentric cycling does not improve cycling performance in amateur cyclists

Eccentric cycling training induces muscle hypertrophy and increases joint power output in non-athletes. Moreover, eccentric cycling can be considered a movement-specific type of strength training for cyclists, but it is hitherto unknown if eccentric cycling training can improve cycling performance in trained cyclists. Twenty-three male amateur cyclists were randomized to an eccentric or a concentric cycling training group. The eccentric cycling was performed at a low cadence (~40 revolution per minute) and the intensity was controlled by perceived effort (12–17 on the Borgs scale) during 2 min intervals (repeated 5–8 times). The cadence and perceived effort of the concentric group matched those of the eccentric group. Additionally, after the eccentric or concentric cycling, both groups performed traditionally aerobic intervals with freely chosen cadence in the same session (4–5 x 4–15 min). The participants trained twice a week for 10 weeks. Maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max), maximal aerobic power output (Wmax), lactate threshold, isokinetic strength, muscle thickness, pedaling characteristics and cycling performance (6- and 30-sec sprints and a 20-min time trial test) were assessed before and after the intervention period. Inferences about the true value of the effects were evaluated using probabilistic magnitude-based inferences. Eccentric cycling induced muscle hypertrophy (2.3 ± 2.5% more than concentric) and augmented eccentric strength (8.8 ± 5.9% more than concentric), but these small magnitude effects seemed not to transfer into improvements in the physiological assessments or cycling performance. On the contrary, the eccentric training appeared to have limiting or detrimental effects on cycling performance, measured as Wmax and a 20-min time trial. In conclusion, eccentric cycling training did not improve cycling performance in amateur cyclists. Further research is required to ascertain whether the present findings reflect an actual lack of efficacy, negative effects or a delayed response to eccentric cycling training.publishedVersio

Lasting impressions: ethnic food tour guides, body work, race and gender in southwestern Sydney, Australia

In this paper we examine the racialized and gendered body work required of guides leading ethnic food tours in southwestern Sydney, Australia. We draw on theorists who examine the materialization of race and bodies to extend concepts of intimacy, vulnerability and proximity: dominant themes in studies of occupations involving ‘body work’. To date, very few studies of tour guides have examined the embodied interactions required by the work of guides. Using Ahmed's concepts of inter–embodiment and impressions, we stress that racialized bodies need to be understood as materializing in body work. In particular, we show how body work on the tours includes smiling, vocalization and shepherding and can be understood as contact with the Other. Our paper contributes to the literature on bodily interactions at work in three core ways: first, adding original empirical work on ethnic tour guiding, second, by showing how ‘body work’ is racialized and gendered, and finally, by exploring the relations between food and multicultural intimacies and the vulnerabilities of racialized bodies

Technological elites, the meritocracy, and postracial myths in Silicon Valley

Entre as modernas elites tecnológicas digitais, os mitos da meritocracia e da façanha intelectual são usados como marcadores de raça e gênero por uma supremacia branca masculina que consolida recursos de forma desproporcional em relação a pessoas não brancas, principalmente negros, latinos e indígenas. Os investimentos em mitos meritocráticos suprimem os questionamentos de racismo e discriminação, mesmo quando os produtos das elites digitais são infundidos com marcadores de raça, classe e gênero. As lutas históricas por inclusão social, política e econômica de negros, mulheres e outras classes desprotegidas têm implicado no reconhecimento da exclusão sistêmica, do trabalho forçado e da privação de direitos estruturais, além de compromissos com políticas públicas dos EUA, como as ações afirmativas, que foram igualmente fundamentais para reformas políticas voltadas para participação e oportunidades econômicas. A ascensão da tecnocracia digital tem sido, em muitos aspectos, antitética a esses esforços no sentido de reconhecer raça e gênero como fatores cruciais para inclusão e oportunidades tecnocráticas. Este artigo explora algumas das formas pelas quais os discursos das elites tecnocráticas do Vale do Silício reforçam os investimentos no pós racialismo como um pretexto para a re-consolidação do capital em oposição às políticas públicas que prometem acabar com práticas discriminatórias no mundo do trabalho. Por meio de uma análise cuidadosa do surgimento de empresas de tecnologias digitais e de uma discussão sobre como as elites tecnológicas trabalham para mascarar tudo, como inscrições algorítmicas e genéticas de raça incorporadas em seus produtos, mostramos como as elites digitais omitem a sua responsabilidade por suas reinscrições pós raciais de (in)visibilidades raciais. A partir do uso de análise histórica e crítica do discurso, o artigo revela como os mitos de uma meritocracia digital baseados em um “daltonismo racial” tecnocrático emergem como chave para a manutenção de exclusões de gênero e raça.Palavras-chave: Tecnologia. Raça. Gênero.Among modern digital technology elites, myths of meritocracy and intellectual prowess are used as racial and gender markers of white male supremacy that disproportionately consolidate resources away from people of color, particularly African Americans, Latino/as and Native Americans. Investments in meritocratic myths suppress interrogations of racism and discrimination even as the products of digital elites are infused with racial, class, and gender markers. Longstanding struggles for social, political, and economic inclusion for African Americans, women, and other legally protected classes have been predicated upon the recognition of systemic exclusion, forced labor, and structural disenfranchisement, and commitments to US public policies like affirmative action have, likewise, been fundamental to political reforms geared to economic opportunity and participation. The rise of the digital technocracy has, in many ways, been antithetical to these sustained efforts to recognize race and gender as salient factors structuring technocratic opportunity and inclusion. This paper explores some of the ways in which discourses of Silicon Valley technocratic elites bolster investments in post-racialism as a pretext for re-consolidations of capital, in opposition to public policy commitments to end discriminatory labor practices. Through a careful analysis of the rise of digital technology companies, and a discussion of how technology elites work to mask everything from algorithmic to genetic inscriptions of race embedded in their products, we show how digital elites elide responsibility for their post-racial re-inscriptions of racial visibilities (and invisibilities). Using historical and critical discourse analysis, the paper reveals how myths of a digital meritocracy premised on a technocratic colorblindness emerge key to perpetuating gender and racial exclusions.Keywords: Technology. Race. Gender

Voice as a technology of selfhood : towards an analysis of racialized timbre and vocal performance

In this dissertation I examine the production of race through sound in general and vocal timbre in particular, and investigate how the construction of the black voice-- against the backdrop of the normative white--in opera, spirituals, and popular music reflects deeply-held American ideas about race. Which processes have contributed to the racialized perception and reification of timbre? What are some of the social and political processes embedded in the cultural capital possessed by certain vocal timbres in specific cultural contexts and various historical periods? I trace modern vocal pedagogy to its origin in colonial ideology, and the concept of a classical African-American vocal timbre from Marian Anderson to the spiritual in the abolitionist era. Investigating the vocal synthesis software Vocaloid, I uncover the macro politics of race and gender as they are materialized in the micro politics of sound: dominant race and gender relations are reproduced through electronic music products and tools. My study of the ways in which producers have framed the African-American jazz and ballad singer Jimmy Scott--as, most saliently, a woman, and as symbolizing death--offers insights into how nonconforming African-American masculinities are desired and consumed. This dissertation ultimately investigates the performative and corporeal aspects of the singing voice, considering these phenomena in terms which involve both performers and audiences. As a consequence, I have shifted the focus of inquiry from the sound of singing--which I term timbre sonic--to the physical act of forming that sound--timbre corporeal--and proposed an investigation of the choreography of vocal timbr