LISTENING AS WORK

Bureau for Listening criticizes how listening and listeners often contribute and generate a diverse form of value unawarded and uncompensated within the structures of our contemporary late capitalistic societies. We experience that the value of listening is often being overlooked or taken for granted, softly fueling others profit making, and we will therefore strongly advocate for recognizing listening as work. We all appreciate and depend on the act of listening, but only rarely is listening recognized as a vital service to perform and offer, and evidently as (compensated) work.

Taking steps towards a recognizing of listening as work is a core element of Bureau for Listening’s mission.

Precarious Workers Brigade states that:

”[…] for me the idea of listening as labour is really crucial, because I mean, I feel very exhausted after listening carefully to something. I need time and I need to plan you know! It is really hard work!”

PWB (Precarious Workers Brigade) (2017). Resonance and Recognition (or the politics of listening). In: The Force of Listening (Ed.: Farinati, Lucia & Firth, Claudia). Berlin: Errant Bodies Press. Page 153.

The typefont:

The typefont used for the statements  is called Mother Nature is a Lesbian. It is created by Be Oakly at Genderfail, and is based on a protest sign.

It is open source and used after economic donation to Genderfail Press.