Sounds like cancer: first steps in sonic life writing

This article introduces 'sonic life writing' as a new methodological approach to sharing bodily knowledge about illness experience through non-lexical sound and music. Drawing on autoethnographic research conducted during treatment for HER2+breast cancer, I argue that sonic approaches can complement existing counter-narratives by offering non-lexical modes that bypass certain constraints of dominant cancer discourse, such as metaphors of warfare. The conceptual framework of 'corporeal acoustemology' extends Steven Feld's work on ways of knowing through sound into medical and corporeal territories, proposing that bodily processes and treatment experiences can be made audible through compositional practice. This methodology moves beyond data sonification to what I term 'artistic sonation'-qualitative sonic expression that captures the temporal, relational, emotional, and embodied dimensions of illness that can resist lexical representation. Three original compositions demonstrate this approach: TCH-P transforms chemotherapy experience into rhythmic testimony using South Indian konnakol vocal techniques; KRANKENHAUSFUNK and the extrinsic death receptor pathway reimagines hospital radio by broadcasting the cellular process of apoptosis through repurposed infusion pumps; and Anuvāram Jugalbandī explores the disrupted temporalities of illness and care through intercultural musical dialogue. Theoretically, the article proposes 'reparative listening' as a framework for engaging with sonic illness narratives, drawing on Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's work on reparative reading and recent scholarship on acoustic justice. This approach creates conditions for witnessing experiences that fall outside conventional narrative structures while challenging the medical emphasis on visual over auditory engagement with bodies. This article and practice-based research positions music and sound not as therapeutic intervention but as testimonial practice and knowledge transmission, contributing to growing intersections between sound studies and health humanities. Sonic life writing offers new possibilities for sharing the complexities of illness experience while expanding our understanding of embodied ways of knowing in medical contexts.