The Art of Listening

by Les Back

Our culture is one that speaks rather than listens. From reality TV to political rallies, there is a clamour to be heard, to narrate, and to receive attention. It reduces 'reality' to revelation and voyeurism.

The Art of Listening argues that this way of life is having severe and damaging consequences in a world that is increasingly globalized and interconnected. It addresses the how can we listen more carefully? Social and cultural theory is combined with real stories from the experiences of the desperate stowaways who hide in the undercarriages of jet planes in order to seek asylum, to the young working-class people who use tattooing to commemorate a lost love.

The Art of Listening shows how sociology is in a unique position to record 'life passed in living' and to listen to complex experiences with humility and ethical care, providing a resource to understand the contemporary world while pointing to the possibility of a different kind of future.

'This is a wise and human piece of writing, concerned to break out of sociology's academic straitjacket and speak to a wider audience. . .If anything can recover the somewhat tarnished reputation of sociology amongst the general public, then it is a book like this.' New Humanist

'The Art of Listening is a rare book in its commitment to vitalize an ethical, global sociology for the twenty-first century. Students are encouraging their parents to read it. Everyone needs this book -- especially jaded academics.' Sanjay Sharma, British Journal of Sociology

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology, Music

222 pages, Paperback

First published August 7, 2007

Reviews

[Karmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

"If a writer's experience and subjectivity is useful we need to think why? Here I am suggesting that these experiences are of little use if they are not put to work in service of reaching out to others. (Back, 160)." A writer’s experience and subjectivity is obviously highly relevant to those of us on Goodreads for without them we have nothing to read. The writer completes his/her work and the experiences transfer to the reader. The reader must now make a choice. Either leave the words undisturbed on the page, quietly slip the book back on the shelf and tiptoe out of the writer’s room, or drink from the well that will allow our seeds of humanity to germinate, grow and ultimately feed others. Les Back, a professor of sociology at Goldsmith’s College in London, believes in a pointillist style of humanity in The Art of Listening where each individual human being has value– is necessary in fact– in the whole. If we truly believe this thesis, we must learn to listen to those beings whose lives touch ours on this canvas of life. Their stories enhance our own.

This book has changed my life. I am a better person for having read it. If a reader selects this book solely to learn the story of the woman on the cover, that story alone has the potential to cause a life-change. The reader, however, who chooses to read Back’s entire message can learn of the human impact of bias and prejudice, inequity and segregation, and emotional isolation. These destroy hope. Back proposes, on the other hand, that true listening to human beings builds hope. “This kind of hope is established in the accumulation of small acts that defy division, hatred and mutual misunderstanding . . . . (Back, 167).”

I choose hope.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cover photo caught my attention and I'm sure glad it did. Turns out Les Back is a rather thought-provoking dude who feels strongly about the role of sociology in understanding the world around us. His subjects of study: immigration, multiculturalism, body art as expressions of love, listening with the eye, and the London terrorist bombing of 2005.

This is a very interesting book that raised a lot of great points about how limited our knowledge and understanding can be. Yet through evaluating how we listen to people, both through aural and visual means, we can reduce any potential misidentification and racism that we might otherwise deal out to those around us. Really cool stuff.

[Cruizcar · Rating 4 out of 5]

El epílogo 💕

[Emma Grönlund · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for etnology class, its great But Also a bit fluffy

[Samah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this it is a creative and inspiring sometimes for writing a method chapter for PhD

[Stephen Jenkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although sociology is not my discipline, I found a lot of wisdom in this book.

[Scott Neigh]

Sociology, by an English sociologist I had never heard of but who is apparently fairly prominent. The book's goal is to think through sociology as a project of listening to the world, and what that implies about how one might go about it and what one can and should do with what is heard. Within this frame, the five body chapters of the book look at five different projects he did based in London in the 1990s and early 2000s. All of it is very thoughtful. Though I am not a sociologist, the stuff about listening is relevant to one of my own projects; the nuts and bolts of his projects are not, so much, but are fascinating nonetheless. One, for instance, involved youth from two London neighbourhoods documenting their everyday lives with photos and storytelling, as a way to explore how they make an often hostile city home. Another looked at the role of tattoos as articulation of belonging and love by working-class Londoners, particularly men. Another started from literal listening to the city soundscape as a way of exploring how a deliberately fostered politics of fear shapes, obscures, and erodes how we are able to listen (in a broad sense) to each other, thereby amplifying the misunderstanding and violence in the difficult, contingent, messy, yet often otherwise relatively functional everyday multicultural fabric of a metropolitan centre like London. And so on. Perhaps the best thing about this book is that the author is clearly that rare academic who cares a great deal about the craft of writing, so it was not only thoughtful and insightful but a pleasure to read.