Benjamin Duester – författare

Sound Knowledge and the Liminal explores liminality as a key feature of life in the Anthropocene. Drawing on a 6-month research project conducted in Mājro, Marshall Islands, it not only contextualises existing continental literature on liminality with a Pacific-centred perspective but also proposes that sound functions as a principal pathway for understanding wellbeing in one of Micronesia’s most resilient and vibrant urban centres. Locating everyday life in Mājro as constantly shifting between the qualities of continental city and coral atoll, the book traces how the local community uses sound to gain wellbeing in liminal spaces. Synthesising theories on Anthropocene islands, sound knowledge, vibratory labour and the auditory bubble, it highlights ludic appropriation and sonic cocoons as central to the affordances of an urbanised atoll space.Providing a thought-provoking discussion of liminality outside of the context of continental cities, this book will be a vital reading for anyone for studying the relationships between Oceanic lives, sound and liminality. Especially relevant for scholars, it is also suitable for students and researchers in fields such as sound studies, cultural studies, political ecology and Pacific studies.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

This book explores the concept of leisure through the lens of colour, offering a fresh and innovative perspective on how chromatic elements shape our understanding of health, wellbeing, and environmental ethics. By focusing on the material and symbolic significance of hues, particularly blue, green, and grey, the book delves into the ways these colours influence leisure spaces and activities. From children’s play to surfing in artificial wave pools and skateboarding, the chapters examine diverse leisure practices across locations such as the UK, Russia, Turkey, East Asia, and North America. The book also challenges the traditional focus on blue and green spaces by highlighting the potential of grey spaces—urban environments like city streets, rooftops, and industrial landscapes—as sites of healthy and meaningful leisure.Through 15 chapters based on original empirical research, this book introduces the nascent field of chromatic leisure, offering new conceptual frameworks that add depth and nuance to leisure scholarship. It critically examines how grey spaces, often overlooked in health and well-being discourse, provide alternative ways to frame leisure, embracing ambiguity, hybridity, and complexity. This book is essential reading for students, scholars and policymakers in leisure studies, social geography, urbanism, and health and well-being research.The chapters in this book were originally published in Leisure Studies and are now accompanied by three new chapters and an updated introduction.

Growing sales numbers for cassette tapes in the Global North since the early 2010s have led mass media outlets to repeatedly proclaim a tape revival.Yet, the grassroots projects of devotees in niche punk, noise and hip-hop DIY music scenes have continuously upheld the unique material benefits of cassettes while wider society considered them a relic of bygone times. Contrasting the popular notion of current cassette use being a mere side effect of the blazing interest in the vinyl record, this book argues that the lasting embrace of tapes is based on complex cultural, economic and material factors that shape cassettes as hybrid artefacts of music in the new media age.Drawing on interviews with 85 experts active in DIY music cultures as independent record shop operators, musicians, event promoters, fans and collectors across Japan, Australia and the United States, Tomorrow on Cassette presents a seminal exploration of how the cassette tape’s significance as a tool for material expression, creativity and sociality perseveres in the 21st-century.