Listening geographies: Landscape, affect and geotechnologies

This paper argues for expanded listening in geography. Expanded listening addresses how bodies of all kinds, human and more-than-human, respond to sound. We show how listening can contribute to research on a wide range of topics, beyond enquiry where sound itself is the primary substantive interest. This is demonstrated through close discussion of what an amplified sonic sensibility can bring to three areas of contemporary geographical interest: geographies of landscape, of affect, and of geotechnologies

Figures in black : heavy metal and the mourning of the working class

This chapter looks at the subculture of Heavy Metal. It notes Metal’s long lack of academic attention, particularly from Cultural Studies, ironically associated with Birmingham, UK, the birthplace of Metal in the late 1960s. The chapter argues that Black Sabbath’s initial template for Heavy Metal offers the form and structure for a work of mourning for the de-industrialization and destruction of traditional working-class culture in the UK. Looking initially at Sabbath, then at Bolt Thrower, the essay suggests that Metal’s work of mourning introduces a process of subcultural identification, supplanted through states of sonic ecstasy, that allows something to be made out of ‘an inferred experience of loss’, to create ‘out of chaos and destruction’. (Hannah Segal

Jihadi Anashid, Islamic State Warfare and the Agency of Sound

Militant anashid (Islamic chants or recitations) are used, chanted and listened to by almost every jihadi armed group in the world. This chapter explores how the issue of the sacred nature of jihadi anashid has been developed in recent Salafi-related Islamic scholarship and examines testimonies on the role of these chants in Islamic State warfare. It argues that the collective beliefs on the sacred nature of jihadi anashid are based on a particular conceptualisation of sound and its agency, which assumes that both music and anashid are able to influence the body and soul of listeners. While the banning of music by the Islamic State strengthens and perpetuates conflict, jihadi anashid listening and chanting are involved in the process of enemy identification, coordinating militant practices and the justification of violence