ABSTRACT
A wide variety of approaches have emerged taking an interest in the sonority of inhabited space, with talk of soundscapes, field recordings, sound studies, sound art, acoustemology, sound installation, auditory culture and even acoustic ecology. The anthropology of ambient sound is therefore, through and through, a social and cultural anthropology constantly questioning the nature of life in sonic terms. Any work on an anthropology of ambient sound also entails exploring the audible field. People are dealing with the sounds which feed an ambiance, which give it consistency and depth, and which may be heard without necessarily being noticed. The power of sound reaches out in many directions, affecting their behavior and their surroundings, emotions and moods. Sound is definitely a powerful medium on the basis of which affects and sensory atmospheres may be deployed, a modality particularly propitious to expressing the pathic component of sensory experience.
