The Sound of Skateboarding: Aspects of a Transcultural Anthropology of Sound

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

This essay explores how the sound of skateboarding can be studied as a critical analysis and transcultural anthropology of sound. Combining the analysis of the particular sensual aspects of skateboarding with an investigation of the cultural and urban discourses and politics of this performative practice, the article proposes theoretical and methodological perspectives of studying the particular relationship of sound, knowledge and space. Taking as an example the experience of four female skaters skating London’s Brick Lane on a Friday night, the sound of skateboarding is explored as a tool for transcultural intervention into gendered urban space and for constructing alternative socialities. The article sets out to analyse how skateboarding as a sonic, kinaesthetic and social practice incorporates a new way of perceiving the body and of knowing through sound. It emphasises the tacit dimensions of knowledge (cf Polanyi 1966) that are involved in skateboarding and asks how the aspect of sound becomes crucial in this process. Moreover, the article investigates the skateboarder’s activity of skating the city’s architecture as that of an aural architect (cf Blesser 2007): The way in which the skater explores the city’s structures, how much speed, pressure, feeling or emphasis he or she puts into the performance, all influences how the city responds sonically.

Original languageEnglish
JournalThe Senses & Society
Volume11
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)24-35
Number of pages12
ISSN1745-8927
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Karl Mays "El Sendador"
  2. Non-native tree species (Pseudotsuga menziesii) strongly decreases predator biomass and abundance in mixed-species plantations of a tree diversity experiment
  3. What is the Problem of Gender Inequality Represented to be in Inter-National Development Policy in Burkina Faso?
  4. Freie Berufe im Wandel der Arbeitsmärkte
  5. Increasing the accuracy and efficiency of wildlife census with unmanned aerial vehicles
  6. Valuing electronic devices? User narratives and their role for durability
  7. Sozialstruktur und Semantik
  8. Wertbeitragsmessung von Managemententwicklung
  9. Environmental management accounting: development, context, contribution and outlook
  10. Teachers’ assessment competence
  11. Big Data und Musik
  12. Neue Lektürefreuden
  13. Towards more sustainable curricula
  14. Brachflächen-Fonds
  15. Students' conceptions about the sense of smell
  16. Complexity in Water Management and Governance
  17. Versionen von "Wuthering Heights"
  18. Business model or strategy
  19. Why and How to adopt Green Management into Business Organizations?
  20. Cross-cultural generalization
  21. Detection of up to 65% of precancerous lesions of the human colon and rectum by mutation analysis of APC, K-Ras, B-Raf and CTNNB1.
  22. Erscheinen und Verschwinden
  23. Driving factors for the regional implementation of renewable energy
  24. Antecedents of Business Opportunity Identification and Innovation
  25. Reflexive Responsibilisierung
  26. Napoleon in den Alpen
  27. Identification of phototransformation products of thalidomide and mixture toxicity assessment
  28. Plant functional traits explain species abundance patterns and strategies shifts among saplings and adult trees in Araucaria forests
  29. Between re-production and re-presentation
  30. Ozonation of Tamoxifen and Toremifene
  31. Mitglieder mit Migrationshintergrund in der IG Metall
  32. When yielding pieces of the pie is not a piece of cake
  33. Inventionen. Zur Aktualisierung Poststrukturalistischer Theorie
  34. Livestock grazing and rainfall manipulation alter the patterning of CO2 fluxes and biomass development of the herbaceous community in a humid savanna