Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
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This multimodal thesis applies a phenomenological approach towards singing gospel music as lived religious practice in a contemporary and post-colonial Latin-American context. The research...Show moreThis multimodal thesis applies a phenomenological approach towards singing gospel music as lived religious practice in a contemporary and post-colonial Latin-American context. The research addresses the lived experiences of Afro-Surinamese vocalists part of the Maranatha Choir Community, performing gospel music as part of their everyday religious lives in Paramaribo, Suriname. The article shows how different generations of choral vocalists shape and negotiate performances of gospel music, embedded in the socioreligious and postcolonial context of contemporary Paramaribo. Through studying discourse and embodied performances, I encountered intergenerational tensions and dialogue regarding the use of voice in religious singing practices. The ethnographic film provides a sensory experience, showing how each choir constructs its own vocal sound and socio-religious space. Narrated from the perspective of youth, the film highlights how young vocalists negotiate religious music traditions and modern pop culture, giving new meanings to everyday life religion and making songs their own.Show less
Wind turbines are an effective source of energy for climate change mitigation. The placement of windmills is often challenged by residents in the local area. In a previous study, it was found that...Show moreWind turbines are an effective source of energy for climate change mitigation. The placement of windmills is often challenged by residents in the local area. In a previous study, it was found that given to local residents about the implementation of windmills in the local area could be an important factor in local wind turbine project acceptance, and that this relationship was mediated by perceived procedural fairness and trust in the wind turbine company. The focus of this experimental scenario study (N=679) is to replicate and build on this previous study. In the current study, participants were asked to empathize with the residents of a fictional town, where a wind farm would be located. Depending on the experimental group, voice expectations were manipulated by randomly assigning to three manipulation groups where they were told that it was common, uncommon that they would be given voice by the company and another group where no voice expectations were manipulated. Participants then either received an opportunity to voice their opinion or received no voice opportunity. In this study it was predicted and found that receiving voice compared to no voice would increase wind turbine project acceptance. It was also predicted and found that this relationship was sequentially mediated by perceived procedural fairness via perceived trust. And lastly, it was predicted that voice expectation served as a mediator between voice opportunity and acceptance. Both of these findings replicated previous research. No significant interaction effect of voice opportunity and voice expectations was found.Show less
In her book-length works "i is a long memoried woman" and “Picasso, I Want My Face Back,” the Guyanese-British poet Grace Nichols uses poetry to give a voice to a particular woman in history. The...Show moreIn her book-length works "i is a long memoried woman" and “Picasso, I Want My Face Back,” the Guyanese-British poet Grace Nichols uses poetry to give a voice to a particular woman in history. The lyrical subjects speaking in these works, an unnamed enslaved woman and the artist Dora Maar, respectively, bear witness to the past injustices they have endured. Through close reading, I show that both testimonial accounts address not only the historical violence suffered by these women but also the epistemic violence perpetrated by a modernist representation of them in writing and in painting. This epistemic violence presents them as non-agents, in crisis and as victims. I argue that at the heart of Nichols’ two testimonial projects lies an ethics of agency which not only seeks to make these particular women’s voices heard, but which also presents a mode of writing that demonstrates their agency as an inspiration for future women’s voices.Show less
Vocalisation is formed in the inversion of the face, up until it reaches the face it is a sound akin to blowing through a blade of grass, it has pitch and intensity but little shape. The shape of...Show moreVocalisation is formed in the inversion of the face, up until it reaches the face it is a sound akin to blowing through a blade of grass, it has pitch and intensity but little shape. The shape of vocalisation is formed in the "mask", the resonant chamber at the front of the head, the inverted face. Thereby, vocalisation is the sonic manifestation of the shape of the face outside of the body. This creates an ambiguity as to the directionality of the face, in that, when someone vocalises visibly towards me, I cannot be sure which way the face, sonically captured in vocalization, is facing. It’s unclear if the other is just talking to themself or to me or are half in half out or are rotating. The chord of vocalisation, the fact that each and every vocalisation is heard/felt as sound in the face and the face captured in sonic form outside of the body simultaneously, suggests that the interaction may be a Narcissus' story, where the face is more often or than not reflected back towards the self. This thesis is supported further if we think about vocalisation as a form of self-pleasure, in the erotic experience of forming vocals and the enjoyment of hearing one's own voice, reflected in the story of Echo. This seems to point towards a social failure or at least ambiguity of the interaction between self and other, if the self is always talking to the self. The experience further still, starts to feel violent when we de-mute or make sonic vocalisation, rarely done in a philosophy of voice. Incorporating sound's intrusive quality on the body into this intersubjective interaction points towards a violent potentiality. The intrusion of the sound of the other on my soundscape, my extended body, is the sonic extension of the body of the other in vocalisation, commanding a piece of my hearing territory, thereby penetrating my body. The problem is that I cannot avoid this because that bodily intrusion has a face attached. In reference to Levinas’ ethics of the face, I am forced to partake in these socially unfulfilling interactions out of a sense of duty to the other's face. To not acknowledge the face in response, even though that inevitable involves an intrusion, is also to estrange the other. Hence, I agree to maintain these interactions in a conduct of consensual violence. The ambiguity of vocal presence leads to a situation where it is violent not to be violent, in my vocal intrusion upon the other.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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In the thesis “Anti-Cantos. A Collection of Stories on Listening and Desire” the relation between listening (to music), desire and the construction of the listening subject is discussed. It...Show moreIn the thesis “Anti-Cantos. A Collection of Stories on Listening and Desire” the relation between listening (to music), desire and the construction of the listening subject is discussed. It consists of three parts: 1) a theoretical introduction in which the traditional Lacanian psychoanalytical idea of desire is revisited through a positive understanding of desire in listening to music, combined with a critique on Adorno’s idea of structural listening, thought from Jean-Luc Nancy’s ideas on resonance and listening; 2) an essay on the relation between listening and desire in literary sources. The Siren episode from Homer’s Odyssey as well as Italo Calvino’s story A King Listens are deconstructed through ideas of Peter Sloterdijk, Maurice Blanchot and Roland Barthes; 3) a trisected essay on three (Blixa Bargeld, Jaap Blonk, Samuel Beckett) musical voices as conveyers of desire in listening. Primary sources are combined with Artaudian ideas on sound and Barthes’ understanding of the Grain of the Voice and jouissance.Show less
In order to investigate the influence of voice pitch and facial dominance on voting behaviour and leadership perceptions, an experiment including 180 Dutch adults was conducted containing a 2*3...Show moreIn order to investigate the influence of voice pitch and facial dominance on voting behaviour and leadership perceptions, an experiment including 180 Dutch adults was conducted containing a 2*3 factorial design. The participants were exposed to a normal and manipulated picture of Jan-peter Balkenende, the former Dutch prime-minister. Respondents were also exposed to a manipulated version of his voice in which the voice pitch had been lowered by 20 herz. The respondents seemed unaware of the picture and voice pitch manipulations as the respondents exposed to the manipulations noted to be just as familiar with the person displayed on the picture as respondents in the control group. However, the manipulations did not have the effect that was expected based on previous studies, the experiment largely showed the subtle nature of these effects on leadership perceptions and voting behaviour. The findings in this study indicate the limited influence of voice pitch and facial dominance on voting behaviour and perceptions of a well known leader's dominance, honesty and power.Show less
