This episode features Justine Lloyd (Macquarie), Cate Thill (Notre Dame) and Tanja Dreher (UNSW) on the key achievements and future directions for research on the ethics, practices and politics of listening, and marks 10 years since The Listening Project (2008 – 2010), funded by the Australian Research Council’s Cultural Research Network and co-convened by Tanja Dreher, Justine Lloyd, Penny O’Donnell and Cate Thill. Speakers reflect on the turn to listening as making important contributions to political equality in the face of established hierarches of attention. It has generated new insights about how to foster democratic participation across a wide range of fields, including media and cultural studies, disability studies, political theory, sociology, science and technology studies – highlighting interests in listening and settler colonialism, critical theories of listening, technologies of listening and listening and the politics of difference. The panel will also points to future directions, or the challenges and opportunities for listening-oriented research in Australia and emerging international networks.

The Politics of Listening is a series of four podcasts from the Media Futures Hub inspired by the recent ‘turn to listening’ in media studies, cultural studies and political theory. The series was recorded at The Politics of Listening 2018 conference at the University of New South Wales. This interdisciplinary conference brought together scholars, artist-researchers and cultural practitioners from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, South Africa and beyond whose work engages with listening in various ways: as a political practice; as a critical frame; as an alternative politics; as a contribution to justice and/or as an ethics of relation. It was the first international academic conference on critical studies of listening. This podcasts mini-series is produced by Dr Poppy de Souza and A/Prof Tanja Dreher www.politicsoflistening2018.com/