Steven Feld

Steven Feld is Senior Scholar at the School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Music at the University of New Mexico. His research on the anthropology of sound environments, ongoing since 1975, has principally taken place in Papua New Guinea (Bosavi rainforest ecological aesthetics), Ghana (African jazz and truck horn music), Southern Europe (pastoral and carnival bells of Greece and Italy), and Japan (underground sound instruments and insect song). Published equally in sound recordings, films, and books and articles, his work is available in nine languages, has received multiple book prizes, and been lauded with MacArthur and Guggenheim prize fellowships, and honorary doctoral degrees in Europe. In addition to many years of cultural advocacy work with the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies, he founded, in 1991, the Bosavi People’s Fund, for collaborative projects in sustainability managed by Bosavi villagers. In 2003 he established Voxlox Media, a publishing company dedicated to collaborations with indigenous and marginalised artists around the world. In addition to his scholarly work on African jazz history, he has performed in Africa, Europe, and the USA as a member of Ghana’s Accra Trane Station, presenting the African legacy of John Coltrane.