Metrics of unrest: Building social and technical networks for heathrow noise

Abstract

This chapter describes Christian Nold's research with Hubbub, which started with working around Heathrow Airport in London and encountering the way local people are affected by the noise there. To understand the controversies concerning the impact of aircraft noise at Heathrow, it is necessary to understand the way technical metrics can systematically exclude the experience of local people. Christian seeks to address this exclusionary combination of technology and politics by building a new noise-monitoring network for Heathrow that engages equally with the social and technical aspects of noise and sees them as fundamentally intertwined.