Walter S. Gershon

Vibrational Affect Sound Theory and Practice in Qualitative Research

This article examines the theoretical, methodological, and practical possibilities of sound for qualitative research. Moving from an understanding that sounds are a form of vibrational affect, the author argues that sound can be articulated as resonance and knowledge in ways that are significant to human experiences of sensation and signification. These conceptualizations of sound are then used to articulate processes of data collection, analysis, and representation for a sounded methodological practice called sonic ethnography. In keeping with the tone and tenor of this special issue and the developing field of sound studies, the third section considers whether sounds need to be categorized as “data” to be of value to qualitative researchers. A final brief section describes the construction and sounds presented in the accompanying sound/work that serves as a performative example of how sounded representations of sonic ethnography can function in practice. The associated sound/work can be found here: https://soundcloud.com/vibrationalaffect/gershon.

Beyond Ocular Inquiry Sound, Silence, and Sonification

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Qualitative Inquiry (QI), we write about the ongoing hegemony of the ocular in research and toward a more multisensory, and aural, embodied inquiry. Sonic inquiry is attention and intention as meta/physical and socially embodied processes without ignoring the body or separating the mind from body or material-physical and social worlds. This article is about acknowledging that sounds and silences have always shaped (research/er) possibilities, as well as what hearing research futures might offer.

Resounding Education: Sonic Instigations, Reverberating Foundations

The purpose of this special issue is to demonstrate the depth and breadth of the ways that sound considerations can significantly contribute to the field of Educational Foundations. An interdisciplinary and international field, Sound Studies has tackled subfields and themes familiar to those who work in educational foundations. For example, there has been work on sound histories, sound philosophies, sound culture, sound/race, and sound methodologies. As noted in a recent article in the twentieth anniversary issue of Qualitative Inquiry, there has also been a burgeoning attention to sound scholarship in education. Not dissimilar to a similar move made in curriculum studies, contributors to this issue will attend to and otherwise explore sound possibilities for educational theory, policy and practice. To these ends contributors will interrupt both everyday, commonsense understandings and longstanding theoretical foundations that tend to be predicated on the ocular. This special issue is open to the many forms for documenting contradictions and trends, theoretical elaboration, empirical scholarship, and methodological innovation with and through sound concepts and tools.

Same as it Ever Was

There has been much recent attention to understandings of our contemporary moment as what is being called “the new Jim Crow” (e.g., Alexander, 2012; Forman, 2012). This talk has primarily centered around discussions of ongoing practices in law and the criminal “justice” system that continue to lead to the overwhelmingly disproportionate incarceration of African American, Latinx and other people (often males) of color.

The Story of a Poet who Beat Cancer and Became a Squeak: A Sounded Narrative About Art, Education, and the Power of the Human Spirit

This collaborative piece represents one of the first iterations of a methodological possibility called sounded narratives. It is also a performative piece of sound/art, a narrative about a poet and his voice, stories that are as much about himself as they are about curricular possibilities and the power of art. Based on a pair of over two-hour interview sessions before and after surgery to remove a large malignant esophageal mass, this piece of art/scholarship is one interpretation of a poet who beat cancer and became a squeak. It is a reminder of the possibilities of stories, the strength of the human spirit, the always-there potential for any experience to be educational, and of the importance of listening.