Juhana Venäläinen University of Eastern Finland

juhana.venalainen@uef.fi

! What is soundscape tourism, and what is the role of silence in it?

! What does it imply to understand soundscapes as “commons”?

! What are the justified conditions for appropriating these commons?

{ 1 } The genre of

soundscape tourism

! Capitalises on the experiences of the acoustic environment and its cultural interpretations !  One of the “background tourism elements” (Jafari 1982) !  Proposes a shift of focus from the visual to the auditory

! One of the adjectival tourisms, and/or a transversal principle

! Silence as a fix-point of the discourse

”There is not such thing as an empty space or an empty time.

There is always something to see, something to hear.”

(John Cage, “Experimental Music”, in Silence, p. 8)

Silence of mind

• Escaping busy lives • Spiritual retreats

Silence of nature

• Soothing, familiar natural and ”authentic” soundscapes

• Birdsong, wind, waves…

Silence for

listening

• Exceptional and surprising sounds

• Distinctive acoustic phenomena

{ 2 } Soundscapes as commons

! Garrett Hardin (1968): “The Tragedy of the Commons”. Science, 162(3859), 1243–1248. !  Unrestricted use of open-access resources “brings ruin to

all” � should be marketized or brought into state control

! However, empirical studies have shown that sustainable and effective commons arrangements are possible and existing (e.g. Ostrom, 1990)

Charlotte Hess (2008): “Mapping the New Commons”

Tourism commons =

”the whole spectrum of resources that host areas

and their surrounding regions possess […]” “heterogenous and variably composed of natural

and built material […] and immaterial […] elements”

(Briassoulis, 2002, p. 1068)

!  lat. auris: pertaining to ear ! The shared heritage of sounds and silence,

provided by the host area for tourists as well as for the locals

! Emphasizes the subjective experience of listening

Aural commons =

"a life-like acoustic space, where people interact and on occasion

intrude, deliberately and accidentally, into one another's space”

(Haag 2002, p. 119–120)

“Sampling is a way of appropriating

this property, of subverting the proprietary status of sound and allows

for a new kind of poaching on the aural commons”

(Schumacher 1995 )

! Two ways of using the aural commons: !  Non-consumptive: listening !  Consumptive: making sounds

! Pollution of the aural commons: making noise

{ 3 } Economies

of the silent

Making noise =

appropriation of the aural commons as private property

John Locke: Two Treatises on Government (1689),

II.5, “Of Property”:

A philosophical justification for the

birth of private property

! The right to the common is not absolute or universal, but temporary and contextual

! This temporary appropriation is justified by the purpose of using it ”to the best advantage of Life, and convenience” (TToG, § 2.26)

! Private ownership comes about from mixing one’s own (= body, labor) to what is not one’s own (= nature)

! To appropriate only as much as one can use ! To leave ”enough and as good” for others ! To maintain or improve the common

! Aural commons as a source of economic value !  “Possibilities of growth in leisure and recreation sectors are

opened up by the more and more common lifestyles that give value to experiences and silence” (North Karelia Regional Master Plan 2014)

!  Soundscape tourism relies on !  1) freedom of listening (-> freedom to roam) !  2) restraints on “unnecessary” noise

! Coordination between noise-making industrial economies and noise-avoiding “economies of the silent” require both local and supralocal institutions of governance

!  Literature

!  Bollier, D. (2007). The Growth of the Commons Paradigm. In C. Hess & E. Ostrom (Eds.), Understanding Knowledge as a Commons. From Theory to Practice (1st MIT Press pbk. ed., pp. 27–40). Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press.

!  Briassoulis, H. (2002). Sustainable tourism and the question of the commons. Annals of Tourism Research, 29(4), 1065–1085. !  Cage, J. (1961). Silence: lectures and writings. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press. !  Haag, S. (2002). Listen and be Touched: Aural Space in “Wandering Rocks.” In A. Gibson & S. Morrison (Eds.), Joyce’s

“Wandering Rocks” (pp. 107–120). Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi. !  Hardin, G. (1968). The Tragedy of the Commons. Science, 162(3859), 1243–1248. doi:10.1126/science.162.3859.1243 !  Hess, C. (2008). Mapping the New Commons. SSRN eLibrary. Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?

abstract_id=1356835 !  Locke, J. (1960). Two treatises of government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. !  Jafari, J. (1982). The Tourism Market Basket of Goods and Services. In T. Singh, J. Kaur, & P. Singh (Eds.), Studies in Tourism

Wildlife Parks Conservation (pp. 1–12). New Delhi: Metropolitan Book. !  Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press. !  Schumacher, T. G. (1995). `This is a sampling sport’: digital sampling, rap music and the law in cultural production. Media,

Culture & Society, 17(2), 253–273. doi:10.1177/016344395017002006 !  Thoreau, H. D. (2008). The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau. Wilder Publications.

!  Image credits: Eetu Haverinen, Alberto Ortiz