Sound anthropologist Dr Tom Rice takes us on an immersive audio tour of an imaginary zoo, and asks us to think about it as a sound world. What happens if we make a conscious effort to listen to the zoo and its animals rather than just look at them? Can listening make us feel closer and more connected?

In an Anthropocene age of habitat destruction and biodiversity loss, an acoustic mindfulness of other lifeforms can help humans recalibrate their relationship to the natural world. It’s argued that looking at animals can produce a sense of detachment from them, and that having animals displayed for our viewing pleasure is an expression of a relationship in which humans are given power, and a sense of superiority. If that’s the case, can listening create a more sympathetic and empathetic orientation towards animals? 

Using animal sounds recorded at British zoos, in this podcast you’ll discover animals in an entirely new way, and think about our impact on them. What is the animals’ sound world like? What impact do our human sounds have on them? And we’ll do an experiment. One way to think about the decline in biodiversity is not just about diminishing numbers, you can also imagine a fade in the audible presence of animals. When a species dies out it also fall silent, so sound is a powerful way to draw attention to the value and fragility of biodiversity. Imagine a fade, taking decades, until finally there’s nothing, only silence. Would that be a loss do you think? 

Tom Rice is a lecturer in anthropology at the University of Exeter. His research specialism is in sound and in 2018 he started a project called Listening to the Zoo with a small group of colleagues. The team worked with Bristol and also Paignton Zoo in Southwest England, to try to think about the zoo as a sound environment, and find out whether attending to different kinds and qualities of sound could produce new perspectives on the zoos and their animals.

This podcast was produced as part of the Listening to the Zoo project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Transforming Social Science research call.  

It was written and presented by Tom Rice, with input from Alex Badman-King, Sam Hurn and Paul Rose, all from the University of Exeter, and also from Adam Reed at the University of St Andrews. The sound designer was Eve Streeter.


Main image: Professor Sam Hurn recording Hamadryas baboons (Papio hamadryas)at Paignton Zoo.

Listening to the Zoo

Tom Rice is a lecturer in anthropology at the University of Exeter. His research specialism is in sound. In 2018 he started a project called Listening to the Zoo with a small group of colleagues. The team worked with Bristol and Paignton Zoo in Southwest England to try to think about the zoo as a sound environment, and find out if attending to different kinds and qualities of sound could produce new perspectives on the zoos and their animals. In this podcast Tom shares some of their findings. The project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Listeningtothezoo

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