On Listening: Stories, Polyphony and the Vagaries of Representation

Summary Listening is a paramount but neglected element of social practice. In storytelling, dialogue, psychoanalysis, ethnography, and theater (to name a few), listener–speaker dynamics shape listening's effects. The polyphony of experience, the normalization of representation, and the inflections imposed by ideologies and desire are critical issues in listening practice. They may be addressed through re‐listening and self‐reflective listening. Revisiting the occasion of listening or its textualization may afford thinking differently as well as self‐understanding.