title: Negotiating Noise in the Home

authors: Beere, Paul

subjects: Noise

abstract: Thinking about how to visually observe space and place has long been central to the theory and practice of geographic enquiry. This preoccupation with vision is by no means isolated to geography, and is embedded in the Western privileging of sight as the primary source of knowledge acquisition. Researchers who have sensed the effect that the ‘myopic’ Western sensorium has had on geographic knowledges are engaging more nuanced approaches which acknowledge that the production of places and spaces is multi-sensory. Such perspectives open up new ways to explore the embodied, emotional, and sensuous production of space. With home at the nexus, this thesis contributes to critical geographic thought by exploring the ways in which the senses mediate socio-spatial power relations. In particular, the analysis centres on how experiences of abject and taboo noises affect the production and maintenance of bodies, identities, and spaces. Within a qualitative, poststructuralist approach, I move beyond Foucault’s panoptic surveillant gaze to instead listen to the disciplinary effects of listening and hearing. Feminist discourses of embodiment and gender, Kristeva’s conceptualisation of abjection, and Eliasian notions of manners and etiquette are drawn on to help flesh out the disciplining effects of aurality.
Twenty individual and four couple semi-structured in-depth interviews with people living in and around Hamilton, New Zealand, are drawn on to explore the means employed to negotiate abject noises. Attention is paid to how these strategies shape, and are shaped by, expectations of self-discipline and bodily comportment. Dominant narratives that emerged relating to the transgressive experience of noises from sexual activity, toileting, and domestic violence problematise the tendency of the (privileged) Western gaze to fix identity and meaning to boundaries and scales. Revulsion, fascination, imagery, ‘dirt’, and other non-aural phenomena, which abject noises readily communicate across partitioned spaces, suggest that listening and hearing do not happen in isolation. The sensory cross-talk invoked by abjection serves to expose the partiality of the Western five discrete senses model, and affects an ontological and epistemological rethink of how geographers engage with the world.
Moving beyond the traditional Western geographic paradigm, I employ sensuous and emotions scholarship from multiple disciplines to offer new ways to understand constructions of corporeal and domicile privacy, discourses which dominate the politics of abject noises in the home. Acknowledging that exposure to abject noises is not uniform across social strata, gender, class, ethnicity, and age are incorporated into the analysis of the flow of power within the socio-spatial experience of abjection. Various cultural sensoria are drawn on to sound out how, through the transgression of bodily and domicile boundaries, abject noises cause the subject and space to leak into each other, and into other bodies. In doing so, I contribute to critical geographies that position the relationship between bodies and place as mutually constitutive.

text: Negotiating Noise in the Home Thinking about how to visually observe space and place has long been central to the theory and practice of geographic enquiry. This preoccupation with vision is by no means isolated to geography, and is embedded in the Western privileging of sight as the primary source of knowledge acquisition. Researchers who have sensed the effect that the ‘myopic’ Western sensorium has had on geographic knowledges are engaging more nuanced approaches which acknowledge that the production of places and spaces is multi-sensory. Such perspectives open up new ways to explore the embodied, emotional, and sensuous production of space. With home at the nexus, this thesis contributes to critical geographic thought by exploring the ways in which the senses mediate socio-spatial power relations. In particular, the analysis centres on how experiences of abject and taboo noises affect the production and maintenance of bodies, identities, and spaces. Within a qualitative, poststructuralist approach, I move beyond Foucault’s panoptic surveillant gaze to instead listen to the disciplinary effects of listening and hearing. Feminist discourses of embodiment and gender, Kristeva’s conceptualisation of abjection, and Eliasian notions of manners and etiquette are drawn on to help flesh out the disciplining effects of aurality.
Twenty individual and four couple semi-structured in-depth interviews with people living in and around Hamilton, New Zealand, are drawn on to explore the means employed to negotiate abject noises. Attention is paid to how these strategies shape, and are shaped by, expectations of self-discipline and bodily comportment. Dominant narratives that emerged relating to the transgressive experience of noises from sexual activity, toileting, and domestic violence problematise the tendency of the (privileged) Western gaze to fix identity and meaning to boundaries and scales. Revulsion, fascination, imagery, ‘dirt’, and other non-aural phenomena, which abject noises readily communicate across partitioned spaces, suggest that listening and hearing do not happen in isolation. The sensory cross-talk invoked by abjection serves to expose the partiality of the Western five discrete senses model, and affects an ontological and epistemological rethink of how geographers engage with the world.
Moving beyond the traditional Western geographic paradigm, I employ sensuous and emotions scholarship from multiple disciplines to offer new ways to understand constructions of corporeal and domicile privacy, discourses which dominate the politics of abject noises in the home. Acknowledging that exposure to abject noises is not uniform across social strata, gender, class, ethnicity, and age are incorporated into the analysis of the flow of power within the socio-spatial experience of abjection. Various cultural sensoria are drawn on to sound out how, through the transgression of bodily and domicile boundaries, abject noises cause the subject and space to leak into each other, and into other bodies. In doing so, I contribute to critical geographies that position the relationship between bodies and place as mutually constitutive.

year: 2014

title: Propositionalisation of Profile Hidden Markov Models for Biological Sequence Analysis

authors: Mutter, Stefan

subjects: computer science

abstract: Hidden Markov Models are a widely used generative model for analysing sequence data. A variant, Profile Hidden Markov Models are a special case used in Bioinformatics to represent, for example, protein families. In this paper we introduce a simple propositionalisation method for Profile Hidden Markov Models. The method allows the use of PHMMs discriminatively in a classification task. Previously, kernel approaches have been proposed to generate a discriminative description for an HMM, but require the explicit definition of a similarity measure for HMMs. Propositionalisation does not need such a measure and allows the use of any propositional learner including kernel-based approaches. We show empirically that using propositionalisation leads to higher accuracies in comparison with PHMMs on benchmark datasets.

text: Propositionalisation of Profile Hidden Markov Models for Biological Sequence Analysis Hidden Markov Models are a widely used generative model for analysing sequence data. A variant, Profile Hidden Markov Models are a special case used in Bioinformatics to represent, for example, protein families. In this paper we introduce a simple propositionalisation method for Profile Hidden Markov Models. The method allows the use of PHMMs discriminatively in a classification task. Previously, kernel approaches have been proposed to generate a discriminative description for an HMM, but require the explicit definition of a similarity measure for HMMs. Propositionalisation does not need such a measure and allows the use of any propositional learner including kernel-based approaches. We show empirically that using propositionalisation leads to higher accuracies in comparison with PHMMs on benchmark datasets.

year: 2008

title: Local Cryo-history: Redefining the creation, transformation and circulation of Aotearoa’s nineteenth century glacier knowledge

authors: Annandale, Claudi - Ann

abstract: The creation, transformation and dissemination of knowledge constantly shapes the narrative of glacier history. However, the intersecting layers that human encounters with the frozen environment, Indigenous knowledge, and popular thought add to glacier histories is often overlooked. By analysing the trends and intellectual traditions that emerged in nineteenth century New Zealand, a period defined as glaciology's 'classical' era of study, this thesis aims to broaden the Southern Alps’ local science-focused glacier discourse.   

Māori, for example, possessed unique mātauranga (knowledge) that was documented through Europeans employing local guides to accompany them across the Southern Alps. This mātauranga shaped some encounters nineteenth-century scientists, surveyors, and travellers had with Kā Tiritiri o te Moana’s glacier environment. New Zealand scholars like Julius von Haast and James Hector, on the other hand, further refined their understanding of New Zealand glaciers through the transnational exchange of knowledge and intellectual debates. A combination of Enlightenment rationalism and Romantic aesthetic also influenced popular glacier narratives that emerged during the nineteenth century. For example, the imagination of journalists, mountaineers and travellers reflected the broader cultural trends that circulated from Europe to New Zealand before their knowledge was disseminated to the public.  

By interrogating mātauranga Māori, formal scientific study, and popular settler imagination about glaciers, this thesis redefines New Zealand’s nineteenth-century glacier history as inherently multilayered through the circulation, creation, transformation and dissemination of glacier knowledge. In doing so, it highlights glaciers not only as physical entities defined by scientific study but as ideas shaped by diverse knowledge systems, cultural perceptions, and historical contingencies.

text: Local Cryo-history: Redefining the creation, transformation and circulation of Aotearoa’s nineteenth century glacier knowledge The creation, transformation and dissemination of knowledge constantly shapes the narrative of glacier history. However, the intersecting layers that human encounters with the frozen environment, Indigenous knowledge, and popular thought add to glacier histories is often overlooked. By analysing the trends and intellectual traditions that emerged in nineteenth century New Zealand, a period defined as glaciology's 'classical' era of study, this thesis aims to broaden the Southern Alps’ local science-focused glacier discourse.   

Māori, for example, possessed unique mātauranga (knowledge) that was documented through Europeans employing local guides to accompany them across the Southern Alps. This mātauranga shaped some encounters nineteenth-century scientists, surveyors, and travellers had with Kā Tiritiri o te Moana’s glacier environment. New Zealand scholars like Julius von Haast and James Hector, on the other hand, further refined their understanding of New Zealand glaciers through the transnational exchange of knowledge and intellectual debates. A combination of Enlightenment rationalism and Romantic aesthetic also influenced popular glacier narratives that emerged during the nineteenth century. For example, the imagination of journalists, mountaineers and travellers reflected the broader cultural trends that circulated from Europe to New Zealand before their knowledge was disseminated to the public.  

By interrogating mātauranga Māori, formal scientific study, and popular settler imagination about glaciers, this thesis redefines New Zealand’s nineteenth-century glacier history as inherently multilayered through the circulation, creation, transformation and dissemination of glacier knowledge. In doing so, it highlights glaciers not only as physical entities defined by scientific study but as ideas shaped by diverse knowledge systems, cultural perceptions, and historical contingencies.

year: 2025