Sonic boundary objects: negotiating disability, technology and simulation

In this article, we present the concept of sonic boundary objects by discussing the case of binaural sound recordings as a tool, which helps to negotiate between blind and sighted experiences of an urban soundscape. We begin with developing the theoretical underpinning of the concept of a sonic boundary object by briefly elaborating on the relevance of the concept of the boundary object in the context of disability and technology; we then explain the special properties of binaural recordings and revisit the musicological concept of the sound object, whose relationship with technology partly inspired the work in this article. After introducing these concepts and related practices we proceed by proposing the term of a sonic boundary object. We discuss the relationship of the sonic boundary object with the concept of simulation in the context of disability studies and we then elaborate on its potential impact as a complementary practice to blind ethnography and to participatory design approaches. We will demonstrate its ethnographic potential with an account of the authors’ experience using binaural recordings to exchange on what blind navigation is like in Montreal. The article concludes with a first-person reflection on this experience and possible fields of application.