Oxford policy engagement workshop 2: Regulating Sound and Music

How are sound, music, noise, and listening implicated in the regulation of protest and freedom of expression? What can music- and sound-specific expertise add to our understanding of how law and policy operate to restrict certain musical cultures? Or what does it tell us about the ramifications of public order legislation that enables police to impose conditions based on noisiness? Or how does a richer concept of listening aid in understanding how to balance the rights of academic free expression with other rights? This workshop brings together academics from multiple fields, legal practitioners, NGOs, and grassroots organizations to discuss these questions.

The workshop will be divided into two halves, each beginning with short panel presentations before breaking out into group discussion guided by a set of related questions. There will be an opportunity to chat with other participants from both the morning and afternoon workshops over lunch, plus an option to go for drinks afterwards.

12:30–13:30 Networking lunch

13:30–15:00 Panel organized by JUSTICE on the suppression of drill music in law and policy

Danielle Manson (Matrix Chambers)
Habib Kadiri (StopWatch)
Lambros Fatsis (City, University of London)

Small-group discussion

15:00–15:15 Tea/coffee

15:15–16:45 Panel on the law of freedom of expression, academic freedom, and protest

James Murray (Doyle Clayton/University of Buckingham)
David Mead (University of East Anglia)
Illan rua Wall (University of Galway)
Chair-respondent: Naomi Waltham-Smith (University of Oxford)

Small-group discussion

16:45–17:00 Final closing discussion and next steps

The first half—convened and designed by JUSTICE—will examine how law and policy is used to supress, and sometimes criminalize, the production, performance, and enjoyment of certain musical genres, disproportionately targeting Black music cultures, most recently drill music. The panel and discussion will examine how the enforcement of these mechanisms, rooted in racist notions of criminality, contributes to the over-policing of Black communities, limits freedom of expression, and undermines the rule of law. We shall consider the challenges facing artists, legal practitioners, and others working to tackle this suppression, as well as what can be done by working together.

In the second half, we will consider how sound, noise, and listening figure more broadly in regulating dissent and disruption. A panel of legal practitioners and scholars will explore how ideas about what “noise” or “being heard” means are implied in the law and socio-legal aspects of protest, as well the law on freedom of expression and academic freedom. The ensuing discussion will consider how a richer understanding of these concepts might inform the development of case law and policymaking in these areas.

The workshop takes place on Tuesday 18 June between 12:30 and 17:00 at Merton College, Oxford.

To attend, please email Naomi Waltham-Smith no later than noon on Friday 14 June.