Living together, living with others: sound proximity and social conflict

Abstract

The noise is a social conflict which is clearly urban and reveals a kind of “pure” sociability, not mediated by personalities but by certain social and spacial conditions of the city. The noise is a phenomenon of intrusion related with lack of space and precarious material conditions of collective dwelling, which determinate, on the other hand, conflictive ways of acoustic contact inside of a dense and diverse settlement. However, the relationships born from the narrow proximity are not enough in order to understand the complexity into the conflict by noise. The case of Mexico City and the analysis of its inhabitant’s testimony drive us to consider that the background of noise problems is not the proximity between neighbors but not knowing how to coexist and to negotiate differences.