Earwitnessing (In)Equity: Tracing the Intra-Active Encounters of ‘Being-in-Resonance-With’ Sound and the Social Contexts of Education

Abstract

Tracing the acoustic ecologies of urban education through a topography of phenomena, this article considers how sound operates as more than paratext to the institutional structures, forms, and mechanisms of teaching and learning. Combining perspectives from phenomenology, feminist new materialisms, and sound studies, the article traces the intra-active encounters and potential tensions in using sound as a locating mechanism to “earwitness” (in)equity in schooling. Taking seriously that sound is not merely vibrations passing through matter at particular frequencies, but a tool that depicts social relations, the paper uses a stacked stories approach to understand how sound and the sonic experience of education intersect and come to crystalize a being-in-resonance-with across particular phenomena.