Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies by Dylan Robinson

This book found me through the algorithm. I don't think that I would have sought out sound studies on my own. So, thank you to the tiny robots inside of my phone for suggesting this book. While the book is written from the standpoint of someone who performs in the arts, I think a lot of the concepts within this book could be helpful to any Indigenous person who stands in front of mixed crowds physically or virtually.

The book sets out to address a problem in the performing arts where inclusion involves "a fixation upon - Indigenous content, but not Indigenous structure." (p. 6). "Hungry listening indicts those displays of equality that are more concerned with importing Indigenous content and increasing representation than with redefining the structure of inclusion." (p. 6). This is what he identifies as hungry listening. In place of hungry listening, he says that "the act of listening should attend to the relationship between the listener and the listened-to" (p. 15). 

He ends his first chapter with a Garneau except on irreconcilable spaces. "Irreconcilable spaces of Aboriginality are gatherings, ceremony, nehiyawak (Cree) - only discussions, kitchen table conversations, email exchanges, et cetera, in which Blackfootness, Metisness, and so on, are performed without settler attendance. It is not a show for others but a site where people simply are, where they express and celebrate their continuity and figure themselves to, for, and with one another without the sense that they are being witnessed by people who are not equal participants. When Indigenous folks (anyone really) know they are being surveyed by non-members, the nature of their ways of being and becoming alters. Whether the onlookers are conscious agents of colonization or not, their shaping gaze and trigger a Reserve-response, an inhibition or a conformation to settler expectations. (Garneau, 2016, 27)." Thus, the next chapter "is written exclusively for Indigenous readers." (p.25). I love that because I am often not the target audience. Even within reconciliation discourse, often direct address is made to non-Indigenous audience members, disappearing me within a discourse about me. It is tiresome to be a secondary audience, as though the messages are hand-me-downs, concepts created with someone else's needs in mind, but I can try them on for size if I like. So, I always appreciate the rare occasion where I am the target audience. The chapter is an attempt to build an equity space inside of a book. 

The book is packed with a wide variety of interesting concepts. The concept of hungry listening ties diverse theoretical perspectives together in a way that makes them coherent. In terms of methodology, I found this perspective helpful "to see Indigenous and Western theoretical discourses as mutually exclusive and to refuse all that is not essentially Indigenous is to impoverish our work as Indigenous writers and scholars, not to mention to assume that we do not make critical choices and repurposings of non-Indigenous theory in ways similar to how we have always repurposed non-Indigenous tools to advance our work." (p. 105). That being said, sometimes this repurposing occurs inside of an Indigenous structure or logic, and the Indigenous logic is not always visible to non-Indigenous people (p. 106). 

Something that I really appreciate about the work is that it does not equate non-Indigenous feelings with actual reconciliation. If a work allows "the feelings of being transformed to satisfy" - that is not actually transformation. Actual transformation requires one to "unsettle and engage with the enormous amount of work that must still be done." (p. 232). Additionally, Deborah Wong cautions that sometimes responses to the TRC lead non-Indigenous people to think that "feeling guilty and ashamed is equivalent to holding oneself accountable." (p. 241). 

By providing examples where Indigenous people have challenged the logic and structure in which their artistic performances take place, and attempted to create an Indigenous logic which engages the listener as an active participant with relational responsibilities, the book provides encouragement to Indigenous people to thwart attempts de-politicize Indigenous art.