This dissertation explores how sound was used as a part of a strategy of domination by colonial powers. Using the theory of the soundscape advanced, I argue that colonization used sound as means to retune the cultures and geographies of colonized and formerly colonized peoples. I use "retune" as an analytic to describe the epistemological, ethical, and environmental processes by which a colonial power alters the function and meaning-in-sound to serve its purposes. The dissertation examines retuning within two contexts: linguistic and environmental. The dissertation's first half unpacks how colonization transfers hermeneutic power through the creation and imposition of syllabic writing systems. Syllabic writing systems cannot express the range of meaning in sound used in the languages of colonized peoples. Thus, meaning is contorted to fit into the syllabic structure imposed by colonizers. The second half of the dissertation explores how soundscapes can be tools for environmental injustices. In particular, I examine how unwanted sounds (i.e., noise pollution) are dumped on Black, Indigenous, Brown, and other marginalized people. Environmental solutions to noise pollution often do not provide justice to marginalized peoples for the harms of environmental noise pollution. In order to address justice concerns for all entities, I argue we should adopt non-anthropocentric forms of Indigenous environmentalism.
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