Listening genres: The emergence of relevance structures through the reception of sound

This article proposes the concept of listening genres and analyzes the constitution of a particular case, “psychoanalytic listening.” The aim is to conceptualize listening practices by focusing on how they create contextual frameworks of interaction, which hold the capacity to direct behavior. The argument is that through listening, sound images produce different contexts depending on the particular way in which an individual listens. Social actors, thus, listen both pragmatically and intentionally. Hearers listen with a purpose, they look for (directed) meanings, and the outcome of their interpretation transforms various social dimensions. To exemplify how listening genres are produced and reproduced, this article explores psychoanalytic listening as a genre in a multi-family psychoanalytic setting in Buenos Aires, Argentina.