“This superb book is the first work of which I am aware to bring sound studies directly into dialogue with a thorough and grounded ethnography of place and identity in the context of ecological being. Delivering a thick, rigorously described sonic materialist ethnography, <i>A Resonant Ecology</i> is a model of and for how anthropologically angled sound studies can open up fresh ways of engaging in participant observation as well as novel ways of apprehending and representing social, political, and multispecies worlds, especially in a time of climate distress.” - Stefan Helmreich, author of (A Book of Waves) “Max Ritts’s focus on the region of the North Coast, where he charts the complex relations between whales, scientists, environmentalists, governments, and Indigenous communities, offers a great richness of sites and stories. By taking a close look at community knowledge and creative initiatives in the face of corporate, governmental and technological developments, Ritts makes a vivid contribution to musicology and sound studies, environmental politics, science and technology studies, Indigenous studies, and animal studies.” - Jody Berland, author of (Virtual Menageries: Animals as Mediators in Network Cultures)
Introduction: On a Resonant North Coast 1
1. At Cetacea Lab: Whale Song and Conservation’s “Late Style” 23
2. Value in Injury: The Work of Science in Ocean Noise Regulation 43
3. “Port Noise”: Sense of Place and State Space in Dodge Cove 65
4. Ancestral War Hymns: Opacity and Indigeneity in Gyibaaw 87
5. Smartest Coast in the World? Digital Sound and Enclosure 107
Conclusion: A Country that Belongs in No Country 125
Notes 133
Bibliography 161
Index 191