Radio Fields: Anthropology and Wireless Sound in the 21st Century

by Daniel Fisher (Author), Lucas Bessire (Author), Daniel Fisher (Author), Faye Ginsburg (Author)

New
Paperback
2012
$36.05

Radio is the most widespread electronic medium in the world today. As a form of technology that is both durable and relatively cheap, radio remains central to the everyday lives of billions of people around the globe. It is used as a call for prayer in Argentina and Appalachia, to organize political protest in Mexico and Libya, and for wartime communication in Iraq and Afghanistan. In urban centers it is played constantly in shopping malls, waiting rooms, and classrooms. Yet despite its omnipresence, it remains the media form least studied by anthropologists. Radio Fields employs ethnographic methods to reveal the diverse domains in which radio is imagined, deployed, and understood. Drawing on research from six continents, the volume demonstrates how the particular capacities and practices of radio provide singular insight into diverse social worlds, ranging from aboriginal Australia to urban Zambia. Together, the contributors address how radio creates distinct possibilities for rethinking such fundamental concepts as culture, communication, community, and collective agency.

Synopsis

Radio is the most widespread electronic medium in the world today. As a form of technology that is both durable and relatively cheap, radio remains central to the everyday lives of billions of people around the globe. It is used as a call for prayer in Argentina and Appalachia, to organize political protest in Mexico and Libya, and for wartime communication in Iraq and Afghanistan. In urban centers it is played constantly in shopping malls, waiting rooms, and classrooms. Yet despite its omnipresence, it remains the media form least studied by anthropologists. Radio Fields employs ethnographic methods to reveal the diverse domains in which radio is imagined, deployed, and understood. Drawing on research from six continents, the volume demonstrates how the particular capacities and practices of radio provide singular insight into diverse social worlds, ranging from aboriginal Australia to urban Zambia. Together, the contributors address how radio creates distinct possibilities for rethinking such fundamental concepts as culture, communication, community, and collective agency.

$36.05

Quantity

10 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 298
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 25 Nov 2012
ISBN 10: 0814738192
ISBN 13: 9780814738191
Book Overview: Addresses how radio creates possibilities for rethinking concepts such as culture, communication, community and collective agency

Media Reviews

Radio Fields crackles and buzzes with the social life of radio and the noise of an anthropology of close listening. I can't imagine a more well-theorized and deeply grounded entree to the sensory mediation politics of radiophony in global public culture. -Steven Feld,Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Music, University of New Mexico
In a series of striking case studies, Radio Fields reveals the vibrancy and diversity of wireless technologies across an enormous geographic range. From radio that constitutes the nation to the pirate, religious, indigenous and `free' radio that provide alternatives to it, the essays draw out the breadth of contemporary radio practices. Mixing together technological analyses of voice, liveness, and immediacy with their political effects, the volume shows how radio is felt as well as heard, and brings out the entanglements of audition, religion, technology, and politics that makes up the social life of radio around the world. -Brian Larkin,Barnard College, Columbia University
Its potential for creating renewed interest and research on radio's relationship with culture and social change has been carefully cultivated, and that may ultimately be a much more significant achievement. -Peter Hart-Brinson, Mobilization
Radio fields has been recognized as a stimulating subject of research by a handful of interdisciplinary and regionally focused volumes, but Radio Fields represents a concentrated effort to insert an anthropological voice into their discussions...Radio Fields is poised to inspire further research. -Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

Author Bio

Lucas Bessire is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oklahoma. Faye Ginsburg is David B. Kriser Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Graduate Program in Culture and Media at New York University. Daniel Fisher is a lecturer in Anthropology at Macquarie University.