ABSTRACT
The foundation of this chapter emanates from the idea that researchers in health, healing, and hospital contexts are accountable for sound and what they hear—and can be—by acting as earwitnesses. The question driving the final chapter arises from sound in all research (SiAR) as a research concept and practice: how can researchers who engage in fieldwork—or individuals who work with those who do—behave responsibly toward sound (or its absence) and its likely effects in research spaces? This chapter offers examples of attending to sound in research spaces and prioritizing researcher and participant bodily experiences. Heeding sound and considering its source and impact in field research contexts further sensorially enriches data collection, research analyses, findings, and implications and addresses sensory hegemony by resisting visualism or ocular centrism by acknowledging sound in our research and reconfiguring vantage points to incorporate sonic dimensions. Researchers are responsible for what they see and what they hear when conducting fieldwork. This chapter provides practical examples for acting as responsible researchers when doing so and extends rhetoric's role to the sonic in fieldwork. Integrating SiAR texturizes rhetorical fieldwork and demonstrates the rhetorical capacity of sound for enriching field studies.
