Nomi Dave

NOMI DAVE, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, was awarded a grant in October 2021 to aid research on “Amplified Feminism: Justice, Sound, and Ways of Hearing in Guinea.” This project explores the role of voice in responses to sexual violence to consider how vocal practices, sound technologies, and ways of hearing shape legal and extra-legal processes. Approaching the voice as a material and social phenomenon, it examines histories and contemporary practices of vocal exclusion, participation, amplification, and refusal around sexual violence in the Republic of Guinea. According to longstanding ways of hearing in Guinea, the female voice conveys a lack of authority and, at times, poses a danger for male listeners. Women do not have command of authoritative speech, and yet their voices are capable of shaming and disciplining men. This ambiguity between power and its absence is at the heart of recent debates around voice, activism, and gender justice in Guinea. Through ethnographic research and close listening, this project considers how various actors in Guinea try to claim or retrain the public listening ear in debates around sexual violence. Moving beyond prevalent metaphors of voice and silence in relation to sexual violence, it aims to show how and why justice claims are made audible and vocal, and to what effect.