The history of field recording in Mexico’s Huasteca region reflects shifting intellectual paradigms, technological advancements, and evolving motivations behind musical documentation. Over the past century, recording projects in the Huasteca have been driven by three primary impulses: an anthropological draw, which seeks to document and archive expressive culture for research; an aesthetic draw, which foregrounds artistic appreciation and sonic qualities; and an entrepreneurial draw, emerging in the digital era, in which recordists leverage online platforms for visibility, audience engagement, and revenue.

This paper traces the evolution of regional field recording practices through key case studies, from the institutional work of midcentury researcher-recordists such as Raúl Hellmer, Thomas Stanford, Arturo Warman, and Irene Vázquez Valle to the independent documentation efforts of Eduardo Llerenas, Baruj Lieberman, and Enrique Ramírez de Arellano in the 1970s and 80s. The 21st century has seen a new wave of DIY documentarians—including Gabino Vera Benito (GavBroadcast) and Hector Manuel Delgado Flores (QuerrequeFilms)—who use YouTube and social media to distribute field recordings in real time, engaging with audiences in ways that previous generations could not. Through the analysis of multiple renditions of the sones El Sacamandú and La Huasanga, this paper examines how shifting recording priorities result in distinct sonic representations of the same repertoire. Ultimately, I argue that tensions between institutional, independent, and platform-based approaches to documentation continue to shape the mediation, performance, and circulation of the Huasteca’s musical practices in the present.

In ethnomusicology, fieldwork often focuses on capturing the sounds of culturally critical or eventful moments. However, in studying the soundscapes of social movements, photographs—through colors, signs, banners, bodies in motion, and tears—also narrate sonic experiences. Protest images function as sensory archives, evoking the invisible presence of sound and reactivating sonic memories (Howes 2005; Voegelin 2014). The “silent” Iranian protest photos in the diaspora can be differentiated from those of Iran and amplify different political soundscapes regarding the same movements. Despite sonic exclusion in the ethnographic studies of these photos, they still unite our sensorium and cause affective responses based on our individual lived memories (Hofman 2015; Stirling 2018; Drott 2023). This paper draws on interviews with a professional protest photographer, fieldwork in the U.S., and digital ethnography of Iranian protest scenes following the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. I examine how images provoke the sensorium, allowing viewers to “hear” the past, narrate stories, and experience a transnational sense of solidarity. By interrogating the interplay between sound and image, I discuss that protest photography serves not only as documentation but as an active medium for sonic imagination and political resonance. How do these visual representations empower our sonic memories? To what extent do ethnomusicologists need photographs to expand their discussions of soundscapes in social movements? How are the visuality of protest photos and the aurality of their stories intertwined in the sound study of social movements?

The words that typify the quintessence of the experience of grief in the Qur’ān were uttered by the Prophet Jacob upon hearing of the death of his son, he proclaimed ‘Patience is Beautiful’ (al- sabroon jamil) (The Qur’ān, 12:18). The pairing of beauty and patience articulates a profound principle in Islamic ethics (takhalluq) and roots that conceptualization in aesthetics. Furthermore, one can deduce that by necessity experiences of grief in Islam submit to time, as being patient in grief can nearly be approximated as an experience of suffering, endurance, or forbearance through duration. This paper endeavors a demonstration that Qur’ānic recitation provides the grounding for an authentic experience of grief. Artistically, this is achieved in terms of the aesthetic profile of ideal recitation which places an emphasis on the pathos of grief (huzn) (Nelson, 1989). Additionally, that melody gives authentic intuitive knowledge that a coherent unity can be experienced sequentially through time (Husserl, 1905). Following Levinas (1993), I will argue that death is a trauma that strikes (daraba) against time to sudden-ness and there emerges patience as length of time, where time is deferred and transferred up to the Infinite (God). Furthermore, that deferred patience transforms into existential ethical responsibility to our neighbors (ibid). In this paper, I explore the social activity of Qur’anic recitation as a macrocosm of the prophetic debt reflected in a being-toward-others, re-collected (dhikr) in communal memory. Phenomenologically, the activity approximates the telos of recitation ‘as God’s ‘gathering’ us or re-collecting our distended souls.’ (Begbie, 2000).

Ethnographic studies on forced-migrant experiences in France often focus on cities in the north and south (Calais, Paris, Marseille), overlooking how long-term displaced communities engage with sound and media after resettling elsewhere. While scholars have examined how diasporic communities in France navigate and resist restrictive migration policies through sonic practices (Echchaibi, 2011; Tan, 2024), research on creative sonic practices within settled forced-migrant communities remains limited, particularly in Bordeaux. When studied, forced-migrant music-making is often framed within moments of active transit rather than resettlement. This paper examines how forced migrants now settled in Bordeaux use their craft in sonically creative ways to transform the urban landscape. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Bordeaux, I explore the multifaceted—and often intimate—ways in which forced migrants respond to shifting personal, professional, and political pressures through sound and media. I analyze how migration-related issues in French politics, particularly droitification, are contested in Bordeaux via local community initiatives, fostering spaces of musical allyshipacross the city. Building on Janet Carsten’s (2020) concept of kinship as doing, I propose sonic kinship as a dynamicframework for understanding the intricate interplay of relationships through sound. Informed by the works of Edward Said (1993) and Naomi Waltham-Smith (2023), my analysis listens contrapuntally to Bordeaux, reflecting on its colonial legacies through its present-day audible infrastructures (Western, 2021). By centering the sonic practices of long-term forced migrants in Bordeaux, this paper reveals the creative ways in which those in displacement challenge systemic obstacles and discrimination while shaping their new lives.