Paper short abstract:

SONATAS is a multidisciplinary projects aiming to understand how communities perceive their ecosystems (and envisage adaptation) through their sonic environments in a context of sociological and environnemental changes, and what sounds tell us about the state of ecosystems and our societies.

Paper long abstract:

Soundscapes are now emerging as a tool to give voice to socio-environmental changes in rapidly changing territories and can feed local-scale engagement projects. Our research project Sonatas (Listening to the SOunds of NAture to undersTAnd global environmental changeS - funded by the LabEx DynamiTe and the LabEx Driihm 2018-2022) aims to understand how local communities hear, respond and adapt to changes in their territories in Arizona in the United States. These territories are subject to multiple sociological and environmental changes - global warming, water scarcity, uncontrolled urbanization, mining projects with heavy environmental consequences. Through acoustic recordings of soundscapes conducted near existing mining sites, we seek to document the impacts of mining operations on ecosystems and biodiversity. The mining territories are also places of strong mobilizations of local communities facing this exploitation of the territory which divides the inhabitants, between the will to exploit and survive economically and the need to preserve the environment. This causes many tensions within the local societies. We met with these citizens during dedicated interviews or participant observations in order to understand their perceptions (auditory but not only) of the changes and to understand the multiple actions carried out collectively to accompany or face them. Some citizens are organizing themselves to try to minimize the impact of extractions on the environment, creating more or less institutionalized groups promoting protection measures on the territories. Through Sonatas, we wish to show how, in these situations, soundscapes can be a tool for action on a local scale.