Networked through Sound: Listening to 20th Century Wildlife Sound Archives

The first known sound recording of an animal was produced in 1889 by the German broadcaster and wildlife sound recordist Ludwig Koch, when he recorded a caged Common Shama thrush. It wasn't, however, until the 1930s that animal sound recording started to flourish, with the development of recording technologies and techniques that facilitated proximity to wild animals. As animal recordings and interest in them started to proliferate, wildlife sound archives emerged as new sites of specialist scientific data sets, primarily as repositories of recordings for bioacoustics research, which is the study of animal sounds, and as reference libraries for the identification of species by scientific taxonomists and wildlife enthusiasts. These archives and their recordings are of contemporary relevance, from their commercial application in Apps, films, and computer games, to their ongoing use in ecological monitoring for environmental conservation. This research project investigates the emergence of a network of seven wildlife sound archives initiated in the mid 20th century across Europe and South Africa. The primary objective of the project is to understand how this network of wildlife sound archives, and the sound recordings they are composed of, are produced and consumed across different social and cultural contexts. More specifically, we will explore: the ethical and political contexts in which the archival network has been produced; the circulation of sound recordings and technologies between the network of archives; the historic and contemporary objectives of the archival network; the utility of wildlife sound recordings to address contemporary environmental issues; and how the network of wildlife sound archives, and the recordings they contain, generate knowledge about the natural world. By investigating seven archives that have rarely, or in most cases, never, been studied outside of natural science research, this project will advance our understanding of how wildlife sound archives have shaped knowledge of the natural world, and hereby make novel contributions to the fields of human geography, sound studies, environmental history, and environmental philosophy. The project will be achieved through an analysis of written archival documents, including correspondence letters of archivists, curators, and sound recordists, and internal archival documentation; interviews with key personnel at each archive, including archivists, curators, and technicians; and an analysis of a selection of wildlife sound recordings held at each archive. In addition to a series of academic outputs, including two co-authored books, the project will create a radio programme, a website, and deliver an international workshop, thereby reaching a range of audiences through various media.