The organizational power of sound: A multi-modal conversation analysis of blind people’s use of audio technologies

In this paper we argue that studying the role of sound in organizing should have more prominence. We discuss this by paying attention to blind people: in fact, sound has a prominent position in their way of being in organizations and working. In a technological and work environment populated by sound and speaking devices, we argue that paying attention to sonic aspects can be crucial to gaining insight into organizational practices in the workplace. This is particularly evident in the case of blind people, who extensively use sound technological devices such as screen readers and voice assistants in order to carry out their duties. In this study we investigate blind people’s relation to sound in the workplace in general, and their use of audio technologies in the specific, adopting a multimodal conversation analysis method. In this direction, we refer to the concept of “acoustemology” (crasis of acoustics and epistemology), coined by ethnomusicologist Steven Feld, to interpret the way blind people know-in-action with sound and through sound. In this approach, the organizational power of sound manifests itself as an alternative epistemology, open to relational ontology and multimodality.