Seminar | Sonic states in Singapore: ‘Urban Noise’ in (a)politicized soundscapes | David Sadoway

Abstract
Singapore’s high-density public housing estates, its relatively uniform urban morphology and infrastructural designs; as well as its tropical-equatorial location, all provide a unique stage for studying public perceptions about changing/changed city soundscapes. Like cities everywhere, Singapore’s urban soundscapes have been molded by its distinct socio-economic, cultural, ecological and techno-political circumstances.  Sonic injustices (or the pernicious effects of ‘noise’) have been partially addressed through Singapore’s efficient, seemingly apolitical, technocratic-regulatory approaches. However, with the city’s ongoing drive to expand in height and breadth, new socio-technical questions about soundscapes have arisen. This presentation sets out to explore the socio-politics of various ‘states of sound’ through the responses of residents, pedestrians and workers in and around a massive construction site in North-Western Singapore.

Speaker
David Sadoway is trained as an urban planner and resource and environmental manager. He has a PhD from the Department of Urban Planning and Design at the University of Hong Kong. He worked in Asia for 15 years before joining Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Department of Geography and The Environment. He instructs: qualitative research, regional geography, energy geography and urban geography. His research involves urban noise pollution and livability; smart citizenship; and contested urban futures. David has served as a research fellow at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore); and a post-doc at Concordia University (Montréal), where he studied the politics of urban infrastructure in India. Dr Sadoway has worked in the UN, government, non-profit sector; and with planning consultants in Toronto and Vancouver.

Registration
Please register if you wish to attend: [email protected]

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Sonic States in Singapore. Public Housing Near The Gali Batu Construction Site (N.W. Singapore) – David Sadoway & L2NICCFP1-2013-1 Prof. Zhao Zhiye Team.