A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book
Trans-corpo-vocality: Voice, gender, and environment in Demian Seesjärvi’s transmasculine senses of self.
Authors: Tiainen, Milla
Editors: Belgrano, Elisabeth; Tarvainen, Anne; Tiainen, Milla
Publication year: 2025
Book title : Mattering Voices: Studying Voice through New Materialisms
ISBN: 978-1-03-248002-2
eISBN: 978-1-00-339099-2
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003390992-6
Publication's open availability at the time of reporting: No Open Access
Publication channel's open availability : No Open Access publication channel
Web address : https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003390992-6
This chapter explores, in collaborative contact with Finnish singer, voice coach, and transman Demian Seesjärvi, the relationships of voice, the voicer's gendered senses of self, and the environments of their voicings as co-constitutive and constantly emergent. In particular, the chapter examines what this relationality might mean to transmasculine vocalizers. The chapter also inquires into the agential role of materialities within the relations at stake, which range from the hormonally and singing technically transforming features of Seesjärvi's voice and body to the different cultural milieus in which he has sung and the more-than-human material entities, such as sound technologies, which have provided him access to diverse vocal styles. In the chapter, the environments of voicings are analyzed as multidimensional socio-material phenomena. I seek to demonstrate how the relations among voice, voicer, and the given surroundings have been constitutive of Seesjärvi's selfhood, both undermining and enhancing his transmasculine senses of self. On a theoretical and methodological level, the chapter proposes that transdisciplinary voice studies, research on transgender voices, and new materialisms can mutually enrich each other while jointly advancing scholarship and awareness on the rich importance of voicings to transpeople.