Forensic voices: cultures of sonic detection and identification in the West

ABSTRACT

This introduction to the special issue “Forensic voices: Cultures of sonic detection and identification in the West” explains the notion of “forensic voices,” positions this in scholarly literature on sound in forensic practices, and introduces the individual contributions.

KEYWORDS:

• speaker identification
• sound detection
• forensic cultures
• sound-based evidence
• voiceprint
• eavesdropping
• machine listening
• acoustic intelligence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/607784 (accessed June 2, 2022).

2. https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021–2027/horizon/wp-call/2021–2022/wp-6-civil-security-for-society_horizon-2021–2022_en.pdf, 6, 76–77 (accessed June 28, 2022).

3. Funding was provided by the Foundation Scientific Research Limburg (SWOL) in the form of an Event Grant 2022 (€2,045), and by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS), Maastricht University through a Research Stimulation Fund Grant 2022 (€2,045) for the Witness Seminar “Speaker Identification” and the Workshop “Forensic Voices: Cultures of Identification through Sound”, June 17, 2022. The event and the preparation of this special issue were also financially supported by the Czech Science Foundation (project 20–30516, “The Second Sense: Sound, Hearing and Nature in Czech Modernity”). We would like to thank Michele Faguet for copyediting this special issue.

4. Muller and Renkema 1970, 362, 365, translation KB.

5. http://lawrenceabuhamdan.com/the-freedom-of-speech-itself (accessed May 25, 2023).

6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8UAwxoeIi8 (accessed May 25, 2023).

7. http://lawrenceabuhamdan.com/the-freedom-of-speech-itself (accessed May 25, 2023).

8. https://tu-dresden.de/gsw/slk/germanistik/digitalcultures/die-professur/team/michelle-pfeifer (accessed May 26, 2023).

9. https://www.uva.nl/en/content/news/news/2022/04/erc-advanced-grants-for-han-van-der-maas-and-amade-mcharek.html (accessed May 26, 2023).

10. https://www.iafpa.net (accessed June 8, 2023).

11. The publication can be accessed here: https://www.maastrichtsts.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Comparing-Voices_26_6_2023_final.pdf Please note that in the upcoming year, the Maastricht STS website might migrate to the Maastricht University (MU) website – the publication can then be retrieved by using the search function of the MU site.

12. This is especially valuable given the fact that no comprehensive overview of the history of the field exists. The Oxford Handbook of Forensic Phonetics is currently being edited by speech scientists Kirsty McDougall, Toby Hudson, and Francis Nolan.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karin Bijsterveld

Karin Bijsterveld is a professor of Science, Technology and Modern Culture at Maastricht University. Her work focuses on the cultural history of sound, and its relations with science and technology in particular. She is the author of Mechanical Sound: Technology, Culture, and Public Problems of Noise in the Twentieth Century (MIT 2008), and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies (Oxford UP 2012, with Trevor Pinch). Among her other books are Sonic Skills: Listening for Knowledge in Science, Medicine and Engineering (Palgrave 2019, OA) and Interdisciplinarity in the Scholarly Life Cycle (Palgrave 2023, OA, with Aagje Swinnen).

Anna Kvicalova

Anna Kvicalova is a historian of science, religion, and the senses. In her work, she deals with the history of sound-based knowledge and listening skills. She is a permanent research fellow at the Centre for Theoretical Study (Charles University and the Czech Academy of Sciences), where she is the leader of the research project “The Second Sense: Sound, Hearing and Nature in Czech Modernity”. She received an MA from the University of Amsterdam and a PhD from Freie Universität Berlin. Between 2013 and 2017, she was a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. She is the author of Listening and Knowledge in Reformation Europe (Palgrave, 2019) and other publications on sound, hearing, and acoustics (published with Annals of Science; Sixteenth-Century Journal; or Technology and Culture). She is also an assistant professor in the Department for the Study of Religions at Masaryk University, Brno