Sounding Sustainable; or, The Challenge of Sustainability

This critique of sustainability is intended to improve cultural sustainability advocacy in ecomusicology, sound studies, and music. The idea of sustainability is expanded in four ways: first, by acknowledging the challenge of sustainability, getting past basic meanings of “endure,” and using sustainability more robustly in its meanings of “change”; second, by arguing for the foundational role of nature / environmental studies; third, by understanding sustainability as a lens rather than a goal, noun, or verb; and fourth, by arguing for aesthetics as an important addition to three-part sustainability theories. Through the lens of a change-oriented, environment-based sustainability, music and sound studies scholars can demonstrate how listeners and musicians value sounds and therefore cultural actions that exist in ethically charged contexts.