Abstract

PETIT, Facundo. Listening to a Modern City. A History of Noise in Buenos Aires (1901-1944). Hist. Soc. [online]. 2022, n.43, pp.38-68.  Epub Aug 22, 2022. ISSN 0121-8417.  https://doi.org/10.15446/hys.n43.99279.

This article explores the role played by noise in the sensitive, material, and symbolic production of Buenos Aires (Argentina) as a modern city in the early 20th century. For this, different narratives contained in the magazines Caras y Caretas and Automovilismo have been analyzed, adopting the notion that history can be approached from an anthropological perspective, with the purpose of situating the listening experience of the subjects. The focus was placed on street sounds, taking mainly the cases of the use of the horn and free flow car exhaust, as well as the State's attempts to regulate these practices through its legal apparatus. This has made it possible to account for the socio-historical conformation of noise, first as a symptom of progress linked to a growing city, and then as a social problem, being a term used to distinguish types of citizens with differential aural cultures. These apparently contradictory senses of noise form the basis for the social production of modern listening.

Keywords : noise; modernity; listening; sound; acoustics; sonority; city; urban life; urban history; Argentina; twentieth century; Caras y Caretas; Automovilismo (magazine).

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