ASSIGNMENT
Sounding the Self:
Positionality, Place, and the Power of Listening
Assignment Description
This reflective assignment invites you to engage with sound as a pathway to explore your identity, environment, and inner life. You will begin by mindfully listening to a space that holds personal meaning—somewhere that nurtures your creativity, calm, or sense of belonging. Through sound, you will reflect on how your lived experience—your positionality—is shaped and revealed.
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As Pauline Oliveros reminds us,
“Sounds beyond the limits of the ear may be gathered by other sensory systems of the body.” (Oliveros, 2005, p.19)
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In that spirit, your task is to tune into both the heard and felt dimensions of sound. You will explore how sound waves through your cultural background, emotional life, and experiences of place. Finally, you will reflect on how sound might serve as a tool for healing, resistance, care, or imagination.
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Whether you write or record, this is your chance to deepen your listening and express how sound shapes who you are.
Assignment Components:
Guiding Prompts (Use if Helpful)
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What does your chosen space sound like?
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How do those sounds shape your thoughts, mood, or body?
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What stories or memories are connected to specific sounds?
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How do you feel seen or unseen through sound?
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What happens when you really listen to a space you thought you knew?
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How can sound express or resist power?
Evaluation Criteria
Format & Submission Guidelines
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Length: 3–4 pages written reflection OR 5–7 minutes audio essay
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Include a 1–2 minute sound recording from your chosen space
Submission format:
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Written: PDF or Word document
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Audio: MP3 or WAV
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Due Date: Determined by your instructor
Optional Readings / Resources:
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Pauline Oliveros – Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice
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Jennifer Lynn Stoever – The Sonic Color Line (Introduction)
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Dylan Robinson – Hungry Listening (on Indigenous listening practices)
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Gloria Anzaldúa – Borderlands/La Frontera (on inner sounds and identity)
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Salomé Voegelin – Listening to Noise and Silence
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Sound Reflection: The Space You Choose
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Choose a space that feels emotionally or creatively significant—a place where you reflect, rest, work, or simply feel most yourself.
(Examples: your bedroom, a local park, a car, your grandmother’s kitchen, a favorite café...)
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Spend at least 15 minutes simply listening.
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What sounds define this space?
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What rhythms or silences stand out?
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What memories or moods emerge as you listen?
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Take notes or record a short audio clip (optional but encouraged) to help capture what you hear.
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Positionality Statement: Sound & Self
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Reflect on your positionality—your social, cultural, geographical, and emotional location in the world.
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Ask yourself:
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How has sound shaped your sense of identity?
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What sounds do you associate with belonging, home, or difference?
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Have certain sounds made you feel seen, or unseen?
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Do you carry specific sounds with you through time or space?
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Consider how factors like race, class, language, migration, gender, or environment influence your auditory world.
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Sound as Tool: Toward Justice, Care, or Imagination
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Choose one lens and explore how sound functions in your life—or in society—as a tool for:
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Healing (e.g., music, prayer, meditation, ASMR)
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Resistance (e.g., protest chants, spoken word, reclaiming silenced voices)
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Care (e.g., lullabies, family voice notes, cooking sounds, presence)
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Memory (e.g., intergenerational stories, sonic archives, rituals)
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Imagination (e.g., daydreaming with music, speculative sound, fantasy)
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