Getting started with Soundwalking and Countermapping
How do we make sense of a place? How do power dynamics and knowledge systems shape the ways we navigate and listen to a space? And what happens when we listen critically as a way of engaging with our surroundings?
This learning resource invites you to explore these questions through the practice of soundwalks and countermapping. Developed through a collaboration between the Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship and the Lloyd Reeds Map Collection, this guide is designed for anyone, from students, educators, researchers to artists and community members, interested in engaging with place through the act of listening. Whether you’re exploring a campus, your neighbourhood, an urban environment or you are out in nature, this resource supports critical approaches to understanding space and power through sound.
This learning resource includes:
- Tips for planning and leading your own soundwalk
- Guided soundwalking activities and discussion questions to deepen reflection
- A curated reading list to support further learning
- A printable worksheet for use during your own soundwalk
Whether you’re incorporating this resource into a classroom, a community initiative, or research project, we invite you to tune in and consider how listening might transform the way you understand and relate to the world around you.
Land Acknowledgement
McMaster University is situated in Ohròn:wakon which is the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas. This land is covered by the “Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant”, an agreement between the Haudenosaunee confederacy and Anishinaabe nations to ensure those who live here take only what they need, leave enough in the dish for others, and keep the dish clean. This land is also covered by the Between the Lakes Treaty of 1792 and is very close to the 1784 Haldimand Treaty, which holds the land six miles to each side of the Grand River as a tract for Six Nations, which is currently not being honored.
Many of us at the Sherman Centre took the First Nations’ Information Governance Centre’s OCAP course this past year which stands for Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession. We encourage you to learn more about OCAP and Indigenous data management practices more broadly, including the OCAS principles endorsed by the Manitoba Métis Federation, the principles of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ ᑕᐱᕇᑦ ᑲᓇᑕᒥ (Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami) National Inuit Strategy on Research, and Global Indigenous Data Alliance’s CARE principles.