special issue "Listening as Witnessing", Witnessing no1

This special issue inaugurates Wintessing: A Journal of Critical Humanities and Socially Engaged Arts, published by the Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in the context of ERC MUTE. Titled "Listening as Witnessing", it draws on a selection of papers given at two international symposia organized in the context of ERC MUTE – Soundscapes of Trauma: Music, Sound, and the Ethics of Witnessing (Horizon 2020).¹ The first one, ‘Listening as Witnessing’, took place in Athens (16 to 19 October 2023) and was co-organized by the Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation (IHR / NHRF), The Listening Academy, and the Athens School of Fine Arts. The second symposium, ‘Ear Witness: Listening to Violence, Migration, Climate’ was co-organized by the IHR / NHRF and the Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD – Genève, Haute école d’art et de design, Hes-so). It took place in Geneva (25 to 26 February 2025), a place where international advocacy and activism meet policy-making, aiming at sharing research and reflections, as well as creating the potential for future synergies and intra-sectoral collaborations.

The articles, essays, and audio essays explore – critically and multimodally – listening as a process of witnessing with regard to traumatic, invisible or inaudible sounds, voices, (hi)stories. How is trauma acoustically represented? What does it take to make an absent sound or voice heard? What is the ethical and political positionality of listening as witnessing? And what of the un­listenable, when it becomes difficult to listen further? What kind of response and responsibilities does listening-wit­nessing call for? Can mutualities and networks of care develop through practices of listening in such contexts? Can listening become the point where different struggles meet? What are the intersections of listening-witnessing and art practices? An encounter of scholars, artists, and researchers, this issue aims at collaborative dialogue. Contributing to new perspectives on listening as witnessing, it hopes to initiate a redistribution of the heard. Published in a politically bleak moment in time, when human rights once taken for granted are consistently undone, far-right ideologies, racism, nationalism, and violence are spiralling out of control against a wide range of Others, while environmental crises, war, and genocide are raging, we wish to open up a dialogue with engaged communities of peers.