This week we’re delighted to welcome Nomi Dave, who is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Virginia and co-director of the Sound Justice Lab. She is an interdisciplinary researcher working across music and sound studies, law, and anthropology. Her work explores the relationship between voice, sound, violence, and claims for justice. 

An abstract for Nomi’s talk can be found below: 

What does the law hear? Whose voices are amplified in formal legal proceedings and whose are excluded? How do people make themselves audible when the law fails to hear them? In the Republic of Guinea, these questions have been brought to life through a series of recent legal actions against perpetrators of sexual violence. As these cases capture public attention, citizens listen to hear the testimony of survivors, the interrogation of witnesses, the arguments of prosecutors and the pleas of the defense – through formal process and informal channels. While adjudicated in court, these cases also generate public debate on questions of forgiveness, shame and truth in gender justice claims. In this talk, I will consider these cases and debates in relation to my current collaborative project, as well as my past experience as a lawyer and ethnographer in Guinea. I describe ways of listening as well as vocal techniques and registers used by survivors, lawyers, activists and journalists, to pursue justice through the law and well beyond it.