As part of the UC Santa Barbara Ethnomusicology Forum's UCSB ABD Graduate Student Series, UC Santa Barbara PhD candidate Alexander Karvelas will present a lecture titled "Eth(n)ographic Gardening: Preliminary Research Design in a Study of Permaculture Acoustemologies" on Wednesday, February 17, 2021 from 3:30-5 pm PST via Zoom. Synthesizing Steven Feld’s framework of acoustemology (1996, 2017) with environmental humanities discourses on the more-than-human (Rose and Van Dooren 2016, Haraway 2017), this presentation sets the theoretical and methodological groundwork for a study of permaculture acoustemologies—permacultural modes of knowing, relating, and tending through sound—in the context of gardening/land-tending as a more-than-human encounter.

Zoom link: tinyurl.com/EthnoW21

Meeting ID: 880 4630 7897

Passcode: 3m867k

Abstract

This presentation introduces the preliminary stages of a research project on permaculture listening practices. Permaculture is a globalized ecological/agricultural and social design framework that emerged in the late-twentieth century as a synthesis of diverse Indigenous Ecological Knowledges and Euro-Western horticultural techniques. It is described by practitioners as both a scientific and artistic method for maintaining healthy eco-social relationships rooted in principles of reciprocity and sustainability. Exploring the implications of permaculture as an artistic method, focus is directed toward the creative acoustic practices (listening and sounding) that permaculturists participate in through the tending of gardens. Synthesizing Steven Feld’s framework of acoustemology (1996, 2017) with environmental humanities discourses on the more-than-human (Rose and Van Dooren 2016, Haraway 2017), this presentation sets the theoretical and methodological groundwork for a study of permaculture acoustemologies—permacultural modes of knowing, relating, and tending through sound—in the context of gardening/land-tending as a more-than-human encounter.

About the Speaker

Alexander Karvelas is a PhD candidate in the Music Department with an interdisciplinary emphasis in Environment and Society. His research focuses on issues of climate (in)justice and the sounds of ecological disaster and regeneration. He is also a member of the Environmental Justice/Climate Justice Research Hub at the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies and an ally member of the American Indian and Indigenous Collective at UC Santa Barbara.