In this talk, interdisciplinary researchers Mhamad Safa (RCA) and Gascia Ouzounian (Oxford) discuss different approaches to ‘counterlistening’: listening against official and hegemonic narratives of contested events, including in the contexts of war and genocide; and listening for sounds and voices that have been occluded and erased, particularly in the aftermath of mass violence. They discuss different approaches to listening as a tactics and mode of resistance in their own work and others, drawing attention to forensic listening projects by Lawrence Abu Hamdan and others; analyzing earwitness testimonies; ‘speculative listening’ (Hartman) to denialist and colonialist archives; and ‘urgent listening’ (Kurda) in times of crisis. The conversation will also reflect on critical approaches to sonic architecture and sonic urbanism, understanding the sonic city as a site of political and social contests and a field in which power relations are expressed and manifested, including in the cases of sonic warfare and atmospheric violence.