In week 26 of Global Sonic Cultures we focused on the concept of Sonic Activism. Learning about groups such as Ultra-red and Soundpocket, we also briefly discussed the ideas associated to sound and gentrification.

The changing sound scapes in areas of gentrification are reflective of social and spatial positioning. I was interested in this topic following class and found an article that is reflective of how silence through gentrification is also silencing the past. As quoted from the paper on gentrification and sound in Washington DC ” To that end, if renewal is about an active silencing, erasure, and the forgetting of a marginalized past, processes of gentrification render certain sounds silent as they signal a history that must be forgotten. These soundscapes produce clear boundaries around who belongs and has rights to be in place, but also how people make use of the city.” (Summers, pp. 35). Social reform and social justice movements, through the use of protest and community, seem to be forgotten in the world of active and participatory silence, as new communities choose to reside rather than to live in areas. Living is through noise, residing is through silence. As quoted from an Atlantic journal article in regards to attending an Ivy League college as a scholarship student, Xochitl Gonzalez emphasises the point in saying “I didn’t yet know that you don’t live on an Ivy League campus. You reside on one. Living is loud and messy, but residing? Residing is quiet business.” (Gonzalez, para. 3).

Summers, B. (No date) Reclaiming the chocolate city: Soundscapes of gentrification and resistance in Washington, DC. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0263775820978242 (Accessed: 13 May 2023). 

Gonzalez, X. (2023) Why do rich people love quiet?, The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/09/let-brooklyn-be-loud/670600/ (Accessed: 13 May 2023).