Leonardo Cardoso

Cardoso’s work focuses on sound as a way to understand how governments operate. His first book, “Sound-Politics in São Paulo” (Oxford University Press, 2019), considers how noise has become a persistent problem in urban centers. The book shows that noise is not just a matter of acoustical engineering and public health but permeates a broad range of issues. In São Paulo, noise emerges in controversies about crime control, religious freedom, spatial segregation, youth leisure, civic engagement, and state accountability.

Cardoso’s current book project, Hearing Like a State: Sound-Politics in Brazil (under contract with Vanderbilt University Press), examines modern statecraft in Brazil through acoustic technologies such as wiretaps, sirens, and geolocation systems.

Science and Technology Studies, Sound Studies, Actor-Network Theory, noise, sound art, sonification, politics, law, ethnography, Latin America, urban studies