Listening to Listening, Ethnographically

Abstract

This chapter highlights that speech is intricately intertwined in the social and cultural worlds of language users; the forms that speech takes and the functions that it performs take shape within the particular contexts of people's lives. The chapter argues that the book has tried to make the case that the same is true for listening. Listening in the anarchic politics of Yopno villages, listening in the liberal democratic public sphere, and listening ethnographically in the field are hardly the same activities. It underlines that they are situated in very different contexts: in different political and economic settings, set against different institutional and historical backdrops, informed by different aspirations and imaginaries. Such conditions shape how people listen, why they listen, who they listen to, under what circumstances they listen, what they listen for, and so on. To get a handle on practices of listening in all their diversity, the chapter emphasizes that it is necessary to attend to these conditions: the lived experiences, the institutional contexts, and the ideals and ambitions that give these practices their import.