Soundscapes as critical tools of analysis

Abstract

Soundscapes have continued to gain attention in geography as it has recently turned to them for understanding political spaces, identities, and places. Soundscapes have provided insights into music, politics, urban environments within cities, and rural parks. Many scholars have argued that geography's heavy focus on visuals has ignored the nuances of sound replete in daily life, performances, communities, and diasporas. Examining multiple elements of soundscape such as language, music, and accent allows for a greater understanding of the processes involved in daily life and activities. Sound can be fundamental to and can offer unique insights into our understanding of cultures, communities, and diasporas. This chapter will outline how sound-language, music, and accent-is fundamental to past, current, and future work in geography through insights drawn from previous literature on sound supplemented with examples from various American and Indian Tamil diasporic events and performances in the United States.