Mehak Sawhney is pursuing her PhD in Communication Studies at McGill University. Previously, she worked at Sarai, a media research programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi. Her ethnographic work studies the intersection of sound and media cultures in South Asia with a focus on machinic listening, voice technologies and urban sound.
Authors | Mehak Sawhney
Articles on Amodern by Mehak Sawhney
SENSATE SOVEREIGNTY
A Dialogue on Dylan Robinson’s Hungry Listening
Dylan Robinson's Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies emerges from encounters between Indigenous sound performance and Western art music. The book takes aim at the pernicious tendency for the latter to insist upon aesthetic assimilation as the end-goal of these encounters, which far too often means derogating the former’s ontologies and protocols of song. In this dialogue-review, members from the The Culture and Technology Discussion and Working Group (The CATDAWG) situate the book within sound studies and critiques of settler colonial listening, reflecting on the major conceptual contributions of the book such as sensate sovereignty, hungry listening, and critical listening positionality.