Sonic Accessibility: Increasing Social Equity Through the Inclusive Design of Sound in Museums and Heritage Sites

Abstract

AbstractSound and hearing effect everyone, they are not niche issues. Within the inherently multimodal experience of a museum, sound plays a crucial role in defining whether an environment is inclusive or exclusive. Yet sonic accessibility ‐ the multiplicity of ways that sound influences accessibility and social equity ‐ remains under researched in design and narrowly represented in access legislation. This paper charts the contours of sonic exclusion in museums and other heritage sites around three central themes. The first considers the existing relationship between Inclusive Design and sound and introduces the emerging paradigm of ‘auraldiversity’. The second considers the structural sonic barriers that operate outside of the individual in their experience of the museum environment. The final theme attends to the psycho‐emotional sonic disablement experienced by many d/Deaf and disabled people within cultural institutions. The paper serves as a furthering of opportunity to reverse the hegemony of auditory norms within museums and other heritage sites and positions sonic accessibility as a critical pillar in the expanding understanding of the multimodal museum.