How can we rethink the modality of music and sound research for social change? What would a praxis model for socially engaged sound ethnography look like?

In her lecture, Wendy Hsu proposes a speculative sound ethnography with the purpose of reimagining new civic possibilities. She contends for an integration of design thinking that offers a paradigm for grounding the social purpose of sound-based research within civic actions. Drawing on digital humanities, design anthropology, and critical design, she unfurls the principles of practice by explicating the relationship between the critical and speculative functions of ethnographic knowledge production. With two community projects and their respective designs, methods, and outcomes, Hsu illustrates two interventionist approaches to sound research while provoking change with urban sounds and engaging with the geographical, social, and economic particularity of communities in Los Angeles.