Professor Tom Rice
Status/discipline:
Sociology, philosophy and anthropology
Contact Details:
Past project:
PI - Listening to the Zoo (funded by the ESRC under their transforming social science call). Below is a brief synopsis, and there have been a number of publications from the project, as well as this experimental audio tour of an imaginary zoo: https://soundcloud.com/user-102738989 Zoos are usually approached as places where animals are, first and foremost, seen. This project, however, aimed to transform the way we think about zoos by attending closely to an aspect of these institutions that has previously been neglected or overlooked: their sounds or 'soundscapes'. Through collaboration with two partner zoos in the UK, this project sought to trial innovative sound research methodologies to generate detailed knowledge about how sounds are woven into the experience of zoos for visitors, staff, people who live near zoos and for zoo animals themselves. It set out to explore how listening, and attending to different kinds and qualities of sound, could promote new forms of awareness of human and animal behaviour in the zoo context. The project aimed to change the mode in which zoo visitors engage with species on display, prompting the development of an 'acoustic mindfulness' with the potential to complicate, challenge and augment a visually orientated approach to animals in the zoo.
