A Manifesto for Applied Ecological Listening
A Manifesto for Applied Ecological Listening
For each session of the Applied Ecological Listening series a different adaptation/adjustment of the Manifesto for Applied Ecological Listening will be presented as a framing of the event.
A Manifesto for Applied Ecological Listening
We propose a form of applied ecological listening that refuses mastery and instead leans into entanglement, not-knowing and becoming. This is not listening as capture, extraction, or control, but as a radical attunement to the fragile resonances that weave us into worlds beyond ourselves. To listen ecologically is to sense the overheard vibrancies—the murmurs of soil, the slow but tireless movements of waters, the breathing archive of air. It is to hear ourselves as permeable, unfinished, threaded through relations that exceed human knowing; a form of healing, imagination, and becoming.
Such listening unsettles dominant epistemologies, asking us to dwell within ambiguity, slowness, and multiplicity. Applied ecological listening is not passive reception but a form of participation—of tending, responding, and becoming-with. It gestures toward a different paradigm of being: one where knowing is inseparable from caring, one that strives for healing, and where our capacity to listen might open the possibility of a more livable planet.
Applied Ecological Listening (noun) (a possible definition)
A practice of attunement that unsettles human-centered ways of knowing, leaning into the thresholds where bodies, environments, and temporalities entangle, shifts, and become. It resists capture and control, embracing a poetic of uncertainty, fragmentation, and the unfinished. Applied ecological listening is less about decoding meaning than inhabiting resonance — sensing vibrations, silences, and relational flows that exceed the self. It invites a radical reorientation: from mastery to reciprocity, from possession to participation, from knowledge as certainty to knowledge as care.
Version #2 – Footnotes by Daniela Medina Poch
Footnotes by Daniela Medina Poch
We (1) propose a form of applied ecological listening that refuses mastery (2) and instead leans into entanglement, not-knowing and becoming. This is not listening as protocol (3), extraction (4), or control, but as a radical attunement to the fragile resonances that weave us into worlds of worlds with and beyond ourselves (5). To listen ecologically is to sense the overheard vibrancies—the murmurs of soil, the continuous movements of waters, the breathing archive of air. It is to hear ourselves as permeable, unfinished, threaded through relations that include and exceed human knowing; a form of, imagination (6), and becoming.
Such listening unsettles dominant epistemologies, asking us to dwell within hybridity (7), slowness (8), and multiplicity. Applied ecological listening is not passive reception but a form of participation—of tending, responding, and becoming-with. It gestures toward a different paradigm of being: one where knowing is inseparable from caring, one that strives for healing (9) and where our capacity to listen might open the possibility of a more livable planet.
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Applied Ecological Listening (noun)
A practice of attunement that unsettles human-centered ways of knowing, leaning into the thresholds where bodies, environments, and temporalities entangle. It resists capture and control, embracing uncertainty, fragmentation, and the unfinished. Applied ecological listening is less about decoding meaning than inhabiting resonance — sensing vibrations, silences, and relational flows that exceed the self. It invites a radical reorientation: from mastery to reciprocity (10), from possession to participation, from knowledge as certainty to knowledge as care.
Footnotes
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Footnotes of footnotes
– These footnotes will only be shared orally. In order to access the footnotes you must call me. Given the conditions, I will whisper them.
– The tile of the footnote section is: Looking at the Ground From the Perspective of an Insect, Even with my Human Eyes*
*Usually footnote sections don’t have titles, but this one does.
Version #2 – inclusions by Yuri Tuma
A Manifesto for Applied Ecological Listening
A proposal for an applied ecological listening refuses mastery and instead leans into entanglement, not-knowing and becoming. This is not listening as capture, extraction, or control, but as a radical attunement to the fragile resonances that weave us into worlds beyond ourselves. To listen ecologically is to sense the overheard vibrancies—the murmurs of soil, the slow but tireless movements of waters, the breathing archive of air. It is to hear ourselves as permeable, unfinished, threaded through relations that exceed human knowing; a form of healing, imagination, and becoming.
To be entangled and sonically acute can be uncomfortable. This type of listening can be healing, but it can also shatter commodities of privileges centred on specific humans. To truly listen in this manner requires emotional knowledge and regulation, empathy, and strength to hold space for the sounds, voices, and memories that have resisted and failed (for now) due to specific economic, societal, and political situated systemic violences. Education, knowledge-sharing methodologies, and diverse ways of knowing are encouraged for anyone, collective or institution that is engaging in this type of listening.
Applied Ecological listening is not to assume that one being from a specific species sounds the same as another. Diversity within other-than-human species can also be appreciated as we consider them as individuals, rather than solely as a collective.
Storytelling and fiction can be powerful tools for transformation. Applied Ecological Listening also engages with imagination. The sounds we hear within us, or through the language telling a story, matter. They can inspire and affect us to make changes.
Such listening unsettles dominant epistemologies, asking us to dwell within ambiguity, slowness, and multiplicity. Applied ecological listening is not passive reception but a form of participation—of tending, responding, and becoming-with. It gestures toward a different paradigm of being: one where knowing is inseparable from caring, one that strives for healing, and where our capacity to listen might open the possibility of a more livable planet.