Listening Nearby: Sonic Citizenship and Social Justice in Places of Detention
Online book launch by Lucy Cathcart Frödén, Kate Herrity and Áine Mangaoang (Oslo, NO & Cambridge, UK), Colloquium Sound & Sensory Studies.
Abstract
Join us to celebrate the launch of a new edited collection, "Sound and Detention: Towards Critical Listening, Sonic Citizenship and Social Justice" (Bloomsbury 2026).
The book explores music and soundscapes in prisons, in order to better understand experiences of imprisonment, and to imagine alternatives to the carceral state. Bringing together over 40 contributors from five continents, this book tunes in to some of the manifold effects associated with the presence and absence of sound and music at sites of detention. Scholarly texts feature alongside poetry, memoir, experimental writing and a diverse collection of audio productions. This plurality of form mediates the voices of artists, activists, thinkers and practitioners—some themselves currently or formerly incarcerated – who each bring their distinct perspectives and knowledges.
The book adopts a resolutely multi-disciplinary approach to considering sound in detention, disrupting assumptions about how we know, how we work together and how we amplify curiosity – and kindness – to think carefully, and rigorously, about what sound can do for invigorating the abolitionist imaginary. This talk focuses on organizing themes of the book, inviting us all to ask what it means for research to ‘listen nearby’. What promises do sound and music hold for fostering community andagency amidst places and practices of confinement? What are the implications of foregrounding sound and music for how we conceive of social justice?