Exposition

Sound Matter and More-than-Human Sound Agency in the Acousphere of Fennoscandian Ritual Sites (2025)

Marianela Calleja, Riitta Rainio, Julia Shpinitskaya
Marianela Calleja

About this exposition

Sounds created through reflection played a key role in the belief and ritual traditions of Fennoscandia up until recent times. The Indigenous Sámi considered echoing rocks and mountains to be sacred places where spirits could be met and conversed with. This article examines the role of sound reflections in these historical, little-known traditions using source material gathered from archives and old ethnographic accounts. We analyze the source material using concepts developed by sound studies and the philosophy of sound. We also apply a new materialist approach, which allows echoes to be regarded from a perspective more suitable to the source material: as sound energies transforming reflective material bodies into vibrant and interactive more-than-human beings. Moreover, the new materialist approach enables us to outline a philosophical basis for a materialist understanding of sound reflections and reflective material bodies, as well as the acoustic spaces associated with them. The concept of acousphere is proposed to understand this kind of space of correlation, confluence, and interchange between the human and more-than-human worlds.
typeresearch exposition
date25/06/2025
published14/07/2025
last modified14/07/2025
statuspublished
share statusprivate
copyrightCalleja
licenseCC BY-NC-ND
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/3772431/3772432
doihttps://doi.org/10.22501/JSS.3772431
published inJournal of Sonic Studies
portal issue28. Issue 28


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