ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book establishes a frame for understanding the aesthetics and ethics of community engaged sound and audio practices that embraced the diversity of approaches represented throughout. It begins with a move towards decolonising sound studies, setting up ‘Listening to Country’ as a model of holistic, community engaged sound practice that privileges First Nations’ Knowledges and embodies ethical, generative cross-cultural collaboration. Casting eyes back to the early emails between ourselves and then with Routledge leading to our first proposal in May 2020, the book explores how this also marked the rapidly unfolding COVID-19 pandemic and the concurrent escalation of unrest in the USA due to the violent death of George Floyd—both of which seemed to dominate the news cycle and produce a collective sense of shock and dismay across the globe.
