Marie Gorm Aabo

Marie Gorm Aabo

PhD fellow

I am a PhD student at the Copenhagen Center for Health Research in the Humanities (CoRe). My PhD is about tinnitus, sound environment and sensory methods. I have a Master's degree in European Ethnology and my areas of interest are aging, health and disease, hearing and tinnitus, senses, and working life. I have extensive experience producing podcasts and I have taught the course Ethnological Communication on the undergraduate course in European Ethnology. 

Primary fields of research

  • Sound, hearing and tinnitus
  • Ageing
  • Disability Studies
  • Senior working life, late career and retirement transitions
  • Food and Meals
  • Mental Health
  • Communication
  • Cultural analysis

Current research

Based on how tinnitus affects people's everyday lives, my PhD project explores how we can understand the impact of the sound environment on physical as well as mental health. Tinnitus is on the rise, challenging the sense of hearing and the way people perceive the everyday sound environment. The project will provide a unique opportunity to investigate the affective and bodily effects of listening practices, sound environments and hearing disorders.

The theoretical basis of the project is the ethnological exploration of everyday life, especially the practice-oriented cultural analysis with a focus on how phenomena are experienced, perceived and enacted. With hearing disorders as a prism to understand sound environments in an everyday perspective, several other relevant research fields open up. The project therefore draws on concepts from: Humanistic Health Studies, Disability Studies, Sensory Studies, and Sound Studies. The project will combine classical ethnographic methods and new experimental methods, where the informants are involved in a co-creation process with the researcher.

The research project contributes with 1) an increased focus on how sound environments affect our quality of life, 2) new qualitative knowledge on how tinnitus is experienced and managed in an everyday life perspective and 3) an exploration of the potential of sensory methods in ethnological methodological, analytical and dissemination work, which will develop the ethnological everyday life analysis and communication strategy.

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