Acoustic Ecology Review is an international journal and publication platform for the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology and the international sound studies community.
Acoustic Ecology Review (AER) is the evolution of Soundscape, which has been the leading international journal for acoustic ecology since 2001. Acoustic Ecology Review extends and enhances the work of Soundscape to publish accessible and inclusive research in various digital formats, including audio and video. AER is a place for listening, dialogue, and debate. This international peer-reviewed publishing platform is available to all WFAE members and scholars of the global acoustic ecology community.
Acoustic Ecology Review publishes editions of Soundscape: The Journal for Acoustic Ecology, conference proceedings of WFAE and those of WFAE Affiliate Member conferences, special editions, and independent articles.
The publication is conceived as a forum for communication and discussion about interdisciplinary research and practice in the field of Acoustic Ecology. It focuses on the interrelationships between sound, nature, and society. The journal seeks to balance its content among scholarly writings, research, and an active engagement in current soundscape issues, both in and beyond academia. It serves as a voice for the WFAE’s diverse and global community.
Acoustic Ecology Review is published in partnership with the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology and Simon Fraser University. The development of Acoustic Ecology Review on OJS (Open Journal Systems) was supported by the World Soundscape Project Educational Fund.
The Acoustic Ecology Review Editorial Board welcomes new members for 2024-2025.
Read more about Calling for Senior Editors, Associate Editors, and Special Editions, 2024-2025
In March 23-26, 2023 The World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE) hosted its 30th anniversary with an international conference, “Listening Pasts - Listening Futures” at the Atlantic Centre for the Arts (New Smyrna Beach, Florida) located near the Canaveral National Seashore, in the unceded lands of the Seminole people. A global cohort of over one hundred artists, academics, authors, students and community engagement specialists gathered to present research, performances, installations and workshops considering how we may learn collectively from the past and imagine new futures based on a diversity of listening practices and acoustic relationships in our worlds. As the wider field of sound studies has matured, so have contributions made by acoustic ecology towards sonic scholarship and practice, including addressing the legacies of the World Soundscape Project. The convening of this community of international specialists to reflect on and re-imagine core values of the field, central approaches, methods, and key theorists of past, present, and future comes during a pivotal environmental awakening, when acoustic ecology and soundscape studies have much to offer the world. Keynotes at the conference included David George Haskell, scientist and internationally renowned author of 2013 Pulitzer finalist The Forest Unseen and most recently Sounds Wild and Broken; Claude Schryer, French-Canadian producer of conscient podcast; Amanda Gutiérrez, Mexican artist/academic; and Jacek Smolicki, ACA 2023 Artist in Residence.
As these proceedings demonstrate, acoustic ecology has matured and moved in critical and prescient directions along with new diversities of voices in the field. Some of the common themes to emerge from this historic edition of the WFAE conference include:
Along with critical perspectives on sound, participants this year dealt with themes of feminist kinship, decolonization, and radical art practices. Both the scholarship, and the calibre of critical art-based interventions speaks highly of the next generation acoustic ecologists. Enjoy reading!
Milena Droumeva and Lindsey french
Conference Proceedings Co-Editors
