Lawrence Abu Hamdan - [Inaudible]
Abu Hamdan, Lawrence. [Inaudible] A Politics of Listening in 4 Acts. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2016.
LADO - Language Analysis for the Determination of Origin
Using someone’s voice/language to determine their origin and decide their right to asylum
A process used by many northern European countries since the early 2000s
“In Conflicted Phonemes, a 2012 project that brought together linguists, researchers, activists, refugee and art organizations, graphic designer Janna Ullrich, and a core group of Somali asylum seekers, Abu Hamdan excavated these methods of policing by ear, drawing on the voice-maps of audio tests used by Dutch immigration authorities. The installation includes an atlas indicating how, despite adoption of a standardized version of Somali as an official national language of Somalia in 1973, the plethora of dialects together with politically induced mass migration has made it virtually impossible to classify people by accent or distinct usage.”
(page 10)
“Linguists insisted that the voice is not a bureaucratic document, but rather a biography, and an index of everyone you have ever spoken to.”
(page 21)
Using someone’s voice/language to determine their origin and decide their right to asylum
A process used by many northern European countries since the early 2000s
“In Conflicted Phonemes, a 2012 project that brought together linguists, researchers, activists, refugee and art organizations, graphic designer Janna Ullrich, and a core group of Somali asylum seekers, Abu Hamdan excavated these methods of policing by ear, drawing on the voice-maps of audio tests used by Dutch immigration authorities. The installation includes an atlas indicating how, despite adoption of a standardized version of Somali as an official national language of Somalia in 1973, the plethora of dialects together with politically induced mass migration has made it virtually impossible to classify people by accent or distinct usage.”
(page 10)
“Linguists insisted that the voice is not a bureaucratic document, but rather a biography, and an index of everyone you have ever spoken to.”
(page 21)