Soundscapes of Disaster and Humanitarianism: Survival Singing, Relief Telethons, and the Haiti Earthquake

Girl power and ‘selfie humanitarianism’

“…In the process, the adoption of the logic of global market capitalism has fundamentally depoliticized humanitarian communication: relying on and fostering neoliberal values and consumerist forms of engagement, shifting focus from the distant other, inwards onto the supporter in the global North (Chouliaraki, 2013;McAlister, 2012;Orgad, 2012;, and instrumentalising solidarity as a profitable choice consumers are invited to make (Chouliaraki, 2013). In this new 'post-humanitarian communication' (Chouliaraki, 2013), oppression, exploitation and global systemic injustice tend to be obscured by short-term and low-intensity relations to the far-away other.…”

Sound maps matter: expanding cartophony

“…My advocacy for more experimental practices taking an expansive definition of phonography and merging it with mapping is intended to point to possibilities for further opening things up. Sound may have a capacity to re-orient the map, but multiple orientations to sound are also needed to avoid a circumscribed practice of sound mapping that might risk perpetuating a single 'recording culture' (Waldock, 2011) and limiting who has a voice and how it can be expressed (McAlister, 2012). Welcoming low-fidelity recordings, for instance, is a way of making sound mapping more accessible to those either without the resources or without the desire to participate in high-fidelity recording practices.…”

‘Intimacy at a distance’ in humanitarian communication

“…Although the literature on humanitarian communication mostly does not (at least explicitly) address the issue of intimacy at a distance (exceptions include Koffman and Gill, 2013;McAlister, 2012;Author 1b removed), many observe that the individual -particularly women and children -constitutes the 'face' of distant suffering. Studies show how constructions focusing on sufferers' personal intimate lives (e.g.…”

“…Cohen, 2001;Chouliaraki, 2006;Dogra, 2012) are employed in Horton and Wohl's (1956: 6) words, to 'coach audience attitudes', to encourage spectators' identification with and care for distant sufferers. For example, McAlister (2012) shows how the moral imperative for responsibility and action in response to distant suffering is couched in intimate terms and uses of idioms of western romantic 4 love in order to resonate with western givers' private suffering over damaged romantic relationships. However, as Thompson (1995: 225) warns, there is a danger that in fostering a symbolic 'bond of intimacy' 'the narrative of the self becomes interwoven with a narrative of the other in such a way that one can no longer prise them apart'.…”