In anthropology and across the humanities and social sciences, zoos have tended to be
theorized as places of spectacle. Scholars often focus on the ways in which these institutions
enable the viewing of other-than-human animals by human publics. This article, however,
uses sound-focused ethnographic fieldwork to engage with two UK ...
In anthropology and across the humanities and social sciences, zoos have tended to be
theorized as places of spectacle. Scholars often focus on the ways in which these institutions
enable the viewing of other-than-human animals by human publics. This article, however,
uses sound-focused ethnographic fieldwork to engage with two UK zoos and to describe a
particular mode of cross-species listening which is enacted by zookeepers. The concepts of
pastoral care and control discussed by Foucault and applied to the zoo context by Braverman
are productively reworked and reoriented in order to understand this form of listening. The
article also demonstrates the interconnectedness of keeper, visitor and animal sound worlds,
in the process generating an original perspective that complements and enriches conventional
zoo studies
