The book Mattering Voices, edited by Laasonen Belgrano, Tarvainen and Tiainen starts with a dedication: “To Voice as Nothing, All and always More-Than…” It is divided in three parts, I Voicing Ontologies, II Voicing Intra-active human agencies and III Voicing the more-than-human. The subtitle of the introduction reveals the aim of the collection: How to let a crossroads emerge between (the study of) voices and new materialism? And many of the articles are dealing with those crossroads, not all of them with music or singing.
 
The section that I found most interesting due to my own concerns was of course the third part, which contains four very different approaches. Julianna Preston writes in “Motor-mouthing” among other things of her own performance RPM hums “where voice made the life force of electric motors palpable” (p 149) and refers to Laura Levin’s idea of ‘performing ground’. Tero Nauha refers to the non-standard thought of François Laruelle in his chapter “The non-standard performance with the singing theremin”. Jennie Tiderman-Österberg describes ‘kulning’ a specific practice of voicing with cows in her text “Cow choirs – Singing-with-more-than-human herds”. She refers to music philosopher David Rothenberg’s idea that “we cannot make any kind of music without sensing its resonance in an environment” (Rothenberg 2001, p 4, quoted on p 2003). In her concluding remarks she further notes how “we should not think ‘what is the point’, but ‘this is the point where I depart into something new’. (p 203) In the last chapter “Speaking of atmospheres – More-than voice and voice of the more-than” Norie Neumark refers to Gernot Böhme’s idea of atmospheres and Ben Anderson’s ‘affective atmospheres’ when describing some artworks. First I am sitting in a courtroom, 2017, by Joel Stern, then Rubber Coated Steel, 2016, by Lawrence Abu Hamdan and finally several versions of their own work with worms.
 
The afterword by Laura Cull brings in further dimensions in the form of echoes, ontological echoes of a new spiritualism and interspecies echoes of intersectional solidarities. In short: a very rich and thought provoking book even for an artist-scholar like me, with no particular interest or experience in voice or the study of voice. But I am talking to trees, so perhaps I should think about that in terms of voice, too.
 
Laasonen Belgrano, Elisabeth, Tarvainen, Anne and Tiainen, Milla (eds.) Mattering Voices – Studying Voice Through New Materialism. Routledge 2025
 
 
 

In the beginning of the year I read a small book, easy to carry around, with brief texts, easy to read in a coffee break, but did not remember to make any notes: Interpretation in Qualitative Research – Key concepts in Qualitative methods. The reason why I found, rather surprisingly, a book on key concepts of qualitative methods in my hands, was that we contributed a small text to the collection with Pilvi Porkola. Our concept was “Performance” (pp 75-79), although performance as research would have been a more apt title. When trying to remember my reading experience the two texts on diffraction seemed most useful; “Diffraction” by Vivienne Bozalek and Michelins Zembylas (pp 32-34) and “Diffractive analysis” by Kathryn Storm and Shakhnoza Kayumova (pp 35-39).
 
The first one focuses on reflexivity, diffraction and interpretation, and tries to understand and even overcome the differences. “Although diffraction and reflection differ both as methodologies and as practices, being grounded in different ontologies, epistemologies, and ethics, there is some continuity in relation to certain forms of interpretation.” (p 34).
 
The second one focuses on diffractive analysis and interpretation as a practical methodology. ” As a methodological orientation, then, the theoretical ideas and goals of diffraction are quite clear. What this looks liken translated into actual methods and analytic processes, however, varies widely (and should, since diffraction is fundamentally about complexity, difference, hybridity and emergence from local conditions). (p 36) They mention diffractive studies that “think-with” data, others are reading data “through” each other to produce interpretive pattern of difference, and many are decentering the human while deliberately including the researcher as part of the process. They note that “diffractive methods enable us to examine how boundaries of differences are produced in our knowledge-making practices” and quote Barad’s point that “knowing [does] not come from standing at a distance and representing but rather from direct material engagement with the world” (Barad 2007, 49, quoted on p 38).
 
A handbook to return to, when brief clarifying or explanatory quotes are needed…
 
 
 
Karin Murris & Mirka Koro (eds.) Interpretation in Qualitative Research – Key concepts in Qualitative methods, New York: Routledge 2025