Sonic Ethnography

Basilicata is a region of southern Italy that was the setting for ethnographic research during the 1950s by Ernesto De Martino, Friedrich Friedmann, Edward C. Banfield, amongst others. Sixty years on, many of the practices canonised in these classic studies live on in reconfigured ways, in which heritage, identity politics and mediatisation play important roles. Sonic ethnography applies to this contemporary frame the most recent perspectives on the anthropology of sound and photographic research, to explore situations as different as the soundscape of tree rituals, the management of sound, the role of the church in annual festivals, the afterlife of ethnographic research in heritage politics and recorded media among migrant communities. The book brings to light how in Basilicata sound plays a central role in the performance of local identities. The volume also contributes innovative insights on doing ethnography in sound and photography.