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The Ethio-South Sudanese border is characterized by instability and conflict. Most populations in this area have experienced violence and displacement and face ongoing insecurity and political inequality. During my fieldwork in the region, several composers gave accounts of how composing and singing Christian songs provided them with comfort and hope in times of hardship, particularly following episodes of violence. Using ethnographic research and interviews as primary methodologies, this article explores how these individuals use religious music-making as a means of coping and resilience in the wake of trauma. The primary goal of this article is to provide a platform for their stories. The secondary goal is to explore resonances between their accounts and scholarly observations about potential roles of music-making in trauma resilience across disciplines. I focus particularly on themes of embodied music-making, community connection, and spirituality. All point to the same phenomenon: that music can play a role in human resilience and meaning-making. Finally, I make suggestions on how to enhance mental health care in culturally-relevant ways in a religious society such as in Ethiopia, as well as draw out cross-cultural implications for mental health care in the western system.
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy
In this article I develop the conceptualisation of affective recognition as a means of deepening understandings of education’s contribution to peacebuilding and social justice in conflict-affected contexts. Scholars have highlighted that one of the crises in peacebuilding education today is the failure to understand and harness the role of the transrational and the affective. I therefore bring together feminist theories of social justice and affective economies to analyse nonformal education programmes with young people in Cambodia and Kosovo and develop the concept of affective recognition. I contend that affective recognition demon strates the central role of affect in enabling processes of peacebuilding and social justice through educational programmes.
Journal of Peace Education
This book demonstrates how participatory arts-based approaches can help children and youth contribute to peacebuilding within post-conflict contexts and to their communities. Cultural forms of storytelling through visual arts, drama, music, and dance can help to enhance post-conflict community well-being, social cohesion, and conflict prevention. However, in the planning and implementation of these arts-based projects, children and youth are often marginalised in decision-making processes. Drawing on cases from Kyrgyzstan, Rwanda, Indonesia, and Nepal, this book demonstrates the benefits of participatory action research with children and youth to inform education curricula and policies for sustaining peace. Showing how artforms can be adapted to meet the needs of children and youth, the book emphasises the need to scale up arts-based peacebuilding initiatives and leverage for greater policy enactment from the bottom up. It is also an excellent example of South–South learning, advocating for a local approach to engage with arts-based methodologies and peacebuilding. This book will be of interest to researchers across the applied arts, sociology, anthropology, political science, peacebuilding, and international development. Practitioners and policymakers would also benefit from the book’s recommendations for the implementation of successful arts-based research projects and interventions.
Urbain, Olivier. 2024. “Music in Daisaku Ikeda’s Philosophy and Practice of Peacebuilding.” Philosophical Practice: Journal of the APPA 19 (3): 3398–3411. https://appa.edu/product/volume-19-3-offprint-urbain/.
In this article a tripartite conceptual framework is used to bring together various insights about Daisaku Ikeda’s praxis of peacebuilding through music. Beethoven was a powerful source of inspiration for his Inner Transformation. Art Blakey’s advice to “play from the inside,” explored in a dialogue with jazz greats Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, can lead to the sharing of inner joy, providing a basic ingredient to enhance Dialogue. Finally, one reason for the establishment of the Min-On Music Research Institute in 2014, was to multiply dialogues, in order to enhance Global Citizenship through collaborative research, practice and education. May these insights serve as an entry point into the vast world of Ikeda’s praxis of peacebuilding through music.
Philosophical Practice: Journal of the APPA
Choral Journal (of the American Choral Directors Association)
Solidarity in which people gather and unite together has appeared in various forms throughout human history and there are examples of music joining in the process of solidarity. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between music and solidarity through cases related to songs while looking at music as a social product and to explore how music works and affects the process of solidarity. To this end, the concept and definition of solidarity, various types of solidarity were examined. The mechanism of music acting on solidarity and the characteristics and attributes of songs especially in terms of solidarity among genres of music were examined. In addition, to understand the various relationships and aspects of music and solidarity, three cases were selected and studied: an international multi-music project Playing For Change, the Rwandan genocide and music and the Korean resistance movement and folk songs. In each case, the background and origin of the solidarity, the aspect of solidarity, the form of music related to solidarity, and the role and implications of music in the process of solidarity were also investigated. As a result of the study, it was found that music could contribute to the process of solidarity that connected and united people to some extent. Through this study, it is expected that various perspectives on music and solidarity will be produced and interdisciplinary research in various fields of study will be triggered. 사람들이 함께 모이고 결속하는 연대는 인류의 역사를 통해 다양한 모습으로 나타났고 연대의 과정에 음악이 함께 한 예도 있다. 이 연구의 목적은 음악을 사회적 산물로 조망하면서 노래와 관련된 사례를 통해 음악과 연대의 관계를 파악하여, 연대의 과정에 음악이 어떤 원리로 작용하고 어떤 영향을 미치는지 탐색하는 데 있다. 이를 위하여 먼저, 연대의 개념과 정의, 연대의 여러 유형을 살펴보고, 음악이 연대에 작용하는 원리 그리고 음악의 장르 중 특히 연대와 관련된 측면에서 노래의 특징과 속성을 알아보았다. 또한, 음악과 연대의 다양한 관계와 양상을 파악하기 위해 국제적 멀티음악 프로젝트인 변화를 위한 연주(Playing For Change), 르완다 대학살과 음악 그리고 한국의 저항운동과 민중가요 등 세 사례를 선정해 고찰하였다. 각 사례에서 연대가 형성된 배경 및 발단, 연대의 양상, 연대와 관련된 음악의 형태, 연대의 과정에서 음악의 역할과 시사점도 조사하였다. 연구 결과, 음악은 사람들을 연결하고 결속시키는 연대의 과정에 어느 정도 기여할 수 있다는 결과가 도출되었다. 이 연구를 통하여 음악과 연대에 대한 다양한 시각이 양산되어 여러 학문 분야의 학제 간 연구가 촉발되기를 기대한다.
Research in Music Pedagogy (음악교수법연구)
This article outlines a conceptual framework for sharpening how we understand and articulate the social impact of community music. Frequently community music programmes speak about bold social impact intentions, especially in areas relating to social justice, with little explanation about the processes that could lead to such changes and patchy details about the extent to which those changes have actually occurred. This is not to say these programmes are not having a positive social impact in communities. Rather, there is an opportunity for our field to sharpen how we conceptualize, identify, evaluate and communicate these outcomes. This article builds on a mounting evidence base of research in our field that documents the multifarious benefits that come from participating in community music. However, it takes this research a step further by providing a conceptual framework for critically thinking through how these positive outcomes can lead to the kinds of macro, systemic changes needed for social impact to occur. As the field continues to grow and diversify internationally, against a backdrop of social, cultural and climate challenges, having ways to understand and articulate community music’s impact could enhance our practice and research, but also lead to greater influence in advocacy, policy and cross-sector domains.
International Journal of Community Music
"Music is powerful and transformational, but can it spur actual social change? A powerful collection of essays, At the Crossroads of Music and Social Justice studies the meaning of music within a community to investigate the intersections of sound and race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and differing abilities. Ethnographic work from a range of theoretical frameworks uncovers and analyzes the successes and limitations of music's efficacies in resolving conflicts, easing tensions, reconciling groups, promoting unity, and healing communities. This volume is rooted in the Crossroads Section for Difference and Representation of the Society for Ethnomusicology, whose mandate is to address issues of diversity, difference, and underrepresentation in the society and its members' professional spheres. Activist scholars who contribute to this volume illuminate possible pathways and directions to support musical diversity and representation. At the Crossroads of Music and Social Justice is an excellent resource for readers interested in real-world examples of how folklore, ethnomusicology, and activism can, together, create a more just and inclusive world"
This paper explores the social effects of a community music program in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, with particular focus on how social music making is implicated in the constitution of cultural identities, national consciousness, and agency. Using ethnographic methods of participant observation and semi-structured interviews, I show how the music program provides the young Palestinians with templates for national belonging that become powerful means of social inclusion and experiences of self-worth, pride, and empowerment. However, I also consider whether these effects can be said to rely on the participants’ subjection to socially and institutionally valid notions of Palestinian identity and forms of belonging. I argue that musical participation is implicated in asserting an essentialist notion of Palestinian identity that potentially reduces the complexity of the lived experiences of the young Palestinians and excludes other possible modes of belonging and selfunderstanding. In this way, the analysis draws attention to the ambiguous role of musical learning and performance in musical-social work.
Music and Arts in Action
Popular music was the most immediate way in which the cultural response to 9/11 manifested itself. Initially music offered a way of mourning and coping with grief. As the United States moved toward the invasion of Iraq, pop music also began to reflect the divisions in society between patriot-artists who supported the invasion, most notably in country music, and protest-artists who articulated critical attitudes to war. These anti-war songs did not attain the stature of those that characterized the era of protest during the Vietnam War, nor did they offer a musical accompaniment to a social movement with any enduring political significance. One little observed dissonance that a longitudinal survey of the musical response to political violence reveals, however, is that over time the attitudes of protest songwriters and the patriots transvalued. Ironically, interventionist “rednecks” became disillusioned with the endless wars of intervention, whilst the “protest” writers lost their voices after President Obama came to power. Ironically, icons of popular music instead turned their ire on those who voted for an anti-establishment President Trump who vowed not to involve the U.S. in further military adventures.
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism
Music and arts initiatives are often praised for their capacity to aid in the rehabilitation of refugees. However, it is crucial to recognize that this celebratory view can also mask the unequal power dynamics involved in regulating forced migration. In Composing Aid, Oliver Shao turns a critical ear towards the United Nations-run Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, one of the largest and oldest encampments in the world. This politically engaged ethnography delves into various cultural practices, including hip hop shows, traditional dances, religious ceremonies, and NGO events, in an urbanized borderland area beset with precarity and inequality. How do songs intersect with the politics of belonging in a space controlled by state and humanitarian forces? Why do camp authorities support certain musical activities over others? What can performing artists teach us about the inequities of the international refugee regime? Offering a provocative contribution to ethnomusicological methods through its focus on activist research, Composing Aid elucidates the powerful role of music and the arts in reproducing, contesting, and reimagining the existing migratory order
Ethical Musicality addresses the crossroads between music and ethics, combining philosophical knowledge, theoretical reflection, and practical understanding. When tied together, music and ethics link profoundly, offering real-life perspectives that would otherwise be inaccessible to us. The first part elucidates music and ethics through some influential and selected scholars ranging from Antiquity via modern philosophy to contemporary voices. In the second part, different roles and arenas are illustrated and explored through various music practices in real-life encounters for the musician, the music educator, the music therapist, the musicologist, the ‘lay’ musician, and the music researcher. The third part unfolds an ethical musicality focusing on the body, relationship, time, and space. Following these fundamental existentials, ethical musicality expands our lifeworld, including context, involvement, power, responsibility, sustainability, and hope. Such an ethical musicality meets us with a calling to humanity - offering hope of a ‘good life’.
This article reviews recent literature on music, protest, and social movements. Its principal focus is on English-language research being conducted in North America and the United Kingdom, dispersed across such disciplines as music studies, social movement studies, anthropology, political science, sociology, and area studies, among others. Four recent trends are highlighted: work that stresses the importance of affect to music’s political efficacy; studies addressing the soundscapes of protest events, including the tactical use of noise and silence by activists; research on media ecosystems, with a particular emphasis on online and social media’s impact on protest movements; and work that throws into relief the contradictory and ambivalent effects of protest musicking. By drawing attention to these areas of common concern, the article aims to foster dialogue among scholars working in different disciplinary spaces, as a way of mapping the terrain where a future protest music studies might take root and flourish.
Music Research Annual
Capoeira began as a martial art developed by enslaved Afro-Brazilians. Today, the practice incorporates song, dance, acrobatics, and theatrical improvisation—and leads many participants into activism. Lauren Miller Griffith’s extensive participant observation with multiple capoeira groups informs her ethnography of capoeiristas--both individuals and groups--in the United States. Griffith follows practitioners beyond their physical training into social justice activities that illuminate capoeira’s strong connection to resistance and subversion. As both individuals and communities of capoeiristas, participants march against racial discrimination, celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, organize professional clothing drives for job seekers, and pursue economic and environmental justice in their neighborhoods. For these people, capoeira becomes a type of serious leisure that contributes to personal growth, a sense of belonging, and an overall sense of self, while also imposing duties and obligations. An innovative look at capoeira in America, Graceful Resistance reveals how the practice of an art can catalyze action and transform communities.
The benefits of community music activities for promoting well-being have been well recognized in previous literature. However, due to their wide variability and flexible approaches, a comprehensive understanding of the research and practice of community music activities for wellbeing promotion is sparse. The purpose of this scoping review was to synthesize published literature pertaining to community music activities for well-being promotion and identify key implementation characteristics and strategies to inform future practice and research. Studies of community music activities that investigated well-being outcomes in participants of all ages and conditions were eligible for inclusion. Through electronic database and manual searches, a total of 45 studies were identified and included in the analysis. The main findings showed that community music activities for well-being were characterized by a wide range of populations and applications, collaborative work, an emphasis on social components, and musical accomplishments. However, this variability also revealed a lack of consistent and thorough information as well as diversity in well-being conception across studies. The review offers practical recommendations for future research and practice based on the current findings.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
After a general introduction to music censorship in sub-Saharan Africa and the concept of social artivism, this chapter presents three case studies of African musicians – namely Hachalu Hundessa (Ethiopia), Bobi Wine (Uganda), and Miriam Makeba (South Africa) – who, because of their political activism and the critical nature of their lyrics, were persecuted, imprisoned, exiled, or even killed. Drawing on existing studies, autobiographic material and interviews, the chapter discusses the difficulties and dangers faced by musical activists in their respective countries of origin when practicing cultural and political rights as well as the “freedom of speech” that is guaranteed in many countries and assumed a global standard of our times, but is still a utopia in many regions of the world. The chapter inquires about the motivations of the artists to take the risks involved in publishing their music, and into the impact their works have on individuals, groups, and the society at large.
Social Activism - New Challenges in a (Dis)connected World
Yale Journal of Music & Religion
The field of community music has been continuously expanding during the last years alongside the need for experienced musicians who can carry out music activities for culturally diverse groups. Based on previous studies, we identified a need for research-based practices for training musicians and music teachers who wish to facilitate community music projects. We believe that it is important to incorporate reflexive practice in order to inform the planning of the workshops, but also to support the needs of the participants. The article examines the evolution of the pedagogical practice of the artist-facilitator in active music making with children, during a series of movement-based musical workshops at an asylum seeker center in Netherlands. We used an exploratory case study integrating Action Research, in order to focus on the artist-facilitator’s pedagogical practice, the participatory role of the children and the content of this type of workshops. The researchers describe the adopted pedagogical approach based on a set of guiding principles and key components that supported the design and content of the workshops. Based on a cyclical process (plan-act-observe-evaluate), the findings from every cycle were incorporated in the next one by analyzing the video footage of the workshops and the immediate reflections of the artist-facilitator. Data analysis revealed a set of recurring themes that reflect crucial aspects of the artist-facilitator’s practice. Furthermore, a set of pedagogical implications are proposed that can be directly implemented within the practice of artists-facilitators who wish to engage in activities with children at asylum seeker centers.
Frontiers in Psychology
Citizenship is a fantasy of political community without others. How is it faring in today’s world of authoritarianism, failed states, and climate crisis? In a world where democratic experiment is, by now, a networked and global proposition? What might we learn from music—and from ethnomusicology? The relationship between the idea of citizenship and music is long standing, but it has not yet been looked at from a perspective informed by postcolonialism and today’s decolonizing debates. The case studies in this volume are, consequently, drawn from across Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Its first chapter locates the current ethnomusicological interest in citizenship in broad critical landscape, focusing on approaches to audience, media, voice, and performance. The second surveys a growing body of recent ethnomusicological literature on citizenship, theorized in terms of identity, technocracy, and intimacy. The third comprises case studies developing an approach to citizenship and political subjectivity beyond conventional liberal categories, defined by mobility (“the citizen on his bike”), collectivity (“the citizen in the crowd”), and activism (“the citizen in the square”). The conclusion offers an argument about the implications for citizenship studies of today’s thinking in ethnomusicology, musicology, and sound studies, reflecting on the hardening rhetoric of political belonging in Europe.
It has long been accepted that participating in music, either as a performer, listener, and/or composer can contribute to human flourishing. This volume explores a fourth musical activity, the act of music scholarship, and reveals how engagement with the cultural, social, and political practices surrounding music contributes to human flourishing in a way that listening, performing, and even composing alone cannot. Music and Human Flourishing contains chapters by eleven prominent scholars representing the fields of musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory. The chapters are divided into three general categories—Contemplation, Critique, and Communication—and cover a broad range of topics and music traditions. In Part I, Contemplation, contributors explore a specific facet of music’s connection to human flourishing and contemplate new approaches for future action. Part II, Critique, contains chapters that challenge past assumptions of the various roles of music in society and highlight the effects that unconscious bias and stereotyping have had on music’s effectiveness to facilitate human flourishing. Part III interacts broadly with the concept of Communication and features chapters that explore how ethnicity, gender, religion, and technology influence one’s ability to connect with others through music. Collectively, the chapters demonstrate how the process of thinking and writing about music and human flourishing can lead to revelations about cultural identity, social rituals, political ideologies, and even spiritual transcendence.
"This book considers the intersection of music, politics and identity, focusing on music (genres) across the world as a form of political expression and protest, positive identity formations, but also how the criminalisation, censuring, policing and prosecution of musicians and fans can occur. All-encompassing in this book is analyses of the unique contribution of music to various aspects of human activity through an international, multi-disciplinary approach. The book will serve as a starting point for scholars in those areas where there has been an uncertain approach to this subject, while those from disciplines with a more established canon of music analysis will be informed about what each perspective can offer. The approach is international and multi-disciplinary, with the contributing authors focusing on a range of countries and the differing social and cultural impact of music for both musicians and fans. Academic disciplines can provide some explanations, but the importance of the contribution of practitioners is vital for a fully rounded understanding of the impact of music. Therefore, this book takes the reader on a journey, beginning with theoretical and philosophical perspectives on music and society, proceeding to an analysis of laws and policies, and concluding with the use of music by educational practitioners and the people with whom they work. This book will appeal to students and scholars in subjects such as sociology, criminology, cultural studies, and across the wider social sciences. It will also be of interest to practitioners in youth justice or those with other involvement in the criminal justice system"--
There exists a rich corpus of literature exploring some of the diverse roles – positive and negative – that music can play in war. This interdisciplinary article makes a novel contribution to this literature, and to research on the sociology of music more broadly, through its particular emphasis on resilience. Scholarship on resilience has increasingly moved beyond person-centred, psychology-based approaches towards more complex relational and multi-systemic framings that situate the concept in the interactions between individuals and their social ecologies (environments). However, it has given little attention to the sensory dimensions of these ecologies, including their acoustic dimensions. Focusing on the war in Ukraine and drawing primarily on media sources (including several online videos) to develop its analysis, the article argues that music can be a form and expression of resilience (and resistance) in war situations that directly acts on the acoustic ecology – a concept that to date has mainly been discussed within ecology and conservation research. Specifically, the article frames music as a form of ‘soundscaping’, in the sense of an active aligning of sound and wellbeing.
Cultural Sociology
The purpose of this study was to assess the ways health and well-being-related terms and concepts (health, well-being, quality of life, wellness) appear in International Journal of Community Music (IJCM) articles. The research questions were: (1) how are health and well-being concepts defined or expressed in IJCM articles? (2) What are the central themes or trends in the use of health and well-being terms in IJCM articles? And (3) what are the implications of the use of health and well-being terms for the practice and research of community music? Utilizing an integrative review methodology and supported by database software Airtable, this study examined the application, discussion, operationalization, and contextualization of music, health and wellness terms and concepts as they appear in IJCM to determine the degree of conceptual coherence on health and wellbeing related terms. Despite the historical and growing interest in connections between music, health and wellness among community music researchers, analysis revealed a lack of coherence in the use of health-related terms and concepts. Further, health and well-being are rarely operationalized in IJCM articles. As a result, findings from studies are not comparable and it is difficult for the knowledge base to advance.
International Journal of Community Music
For one hundred years and more, musicians have been drawn to the potential of musical processes and relationships to embody democratic principles. This book is the first extended study of this ‘musical modelling of democracy’, as manifested in modern and experimental music of the global North. Four different approaches are surveyed in turn. In the music of Elliott Carter, democratic principles shape the textural relationships inscribed in the musical score. The indeterminate music of John Cage and his associates sought to democratise the composer–performer relationship by leaving open fundamental decisions about the realisation of a piece. Musicians have involved audiences in active participation, as a means to liberate them from a passive spectatorship. Free improvisation groups have experimented with new kinds of egalitarian relationship between ensemble members, in an effort to reject old hierarchies. In examining these different approaches, modern democratic theory is deployed to illuminate the achievements and ambiguities of musical models of democracy, stressing the heterogeneity of democracy as a concept, and the impossibility of conceiving specific democratic arrangements independently of particular, situated interests. An opening chapter establishes the contestability of democracy as a concept, and the book closes with a consideration of musical treatments of democracy in the age of Donald Trump.
"This book demonstrates the processes of intercultural musical collaboration and how these processes contribute to facilitating positive relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Australia. Each of the 12 chapters in this edited collection examines specific examples in diverse contexts, and reflects on key issues that underpin musical exchanges, including the benefits and challenges of intercultural music making. The collection demonstrates how these musical collaboration allow Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to work together, to learn from each other, and to improve and strengthen their relationships. The metaphor of the "third space" of intercultural music making is interwoven in different ways throughout this volume. While focusing on Indigenous Australian/non-Indigenous intercultural musical collaboration, the book will be of interest globally as a resource for scholars and postgraduate students exploring intercultural musical communication in countries with histories of colonisation, such as New Zealand and Canada"-- Provided by publisher
As criminal justice reform has gained momentum in the United States, it is worth evaluating the relationships between correctional institutions, parole and probation offices, and the arts organizations that operate within them. This study examines these relationships in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties in Southern California. Best practices and methods are explored, as well as the ways in which the institutions that constitute the justice system can better support arts organizations in their efforts to work with justice-involved young people.
Music and Arts in Action
Community Music Therapy (COMT) is a development increasingly referenced and often nebulous in the field of music therapy. Depending on its description in the literature, COMT seems to be situated between an aspiration to stretch beyond boundaries of the ‘consensus model’ and serve atypical populations, and a working practical approach with clear guidelines. Curiosity around this phenomenon inspired an initial inquiry by the author into potential theoretical underpinnings to provide context and definition for its aims, namely critical theory. Through identifying the links between CoMT, critical theory/psychology, and conflict transformation–the approach utilized in modern peacekeeping–the author hoped to inspire more intentional efforts by music therapists working at the convergence of those ideas. This research culminated in the author’s master’s thesis, a critical review and attempted integration of these topics, in 2018. This article aspires to build upon that research by remapping the knowledge gained onto the experiences that catalyzed the inquiry. Through vignettes and commentary, the author uses a reflexive, critical lens to examine his tenure as a music counselor at Seeds of Peace Camp, a conflict transformation camp. By re-examining trial-by-fire moments and their aftermath, the author identifies relevant research in the aforementioned fields that may have enhanced or explained participant responses. This serves to broaden the collective understanding of the overlapping goals and practices of CoMT, critical theory/psychology and conflict transformation.
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy
This article offers a new conceptual and theoretical model for researching music-based peacebuilding, an emerging interdisciplinary field that is characterised by heterogeneity of practices, concepts, and analytical approaches. Drawing upon findings from a scoping study of 62 peer-reviewed English language publications that describe music-based peacebuilding practices, it presents a typology of six varieties of peace that this work can foster. Each peace is constituted by a combination of four key variables in approaches to practice and implementation: intergroup encounter; intentional engagement with the extant conflict or politics that drive the need for peace-promoting work; sociality and opportunities for independent social interactions and affective ties; and the projection of the peace message to an external audience. The typology brings needed coherence to this diverse field, providing a nuanced framework for articulating the peacebuilding potential of music and for engaging critically with the possibilities, limitations, and complexities of creative contributions to peacebuilding.
Peacebuilding
Since the February 1, 2021 military coup in Myanmar, Burmese musicians have been creating and circulating anticoup songs, which are usually called “revolutionary songs.” This article describes a representative sample of these songs, explaining how the lyrics reference important tropes in Burmese life and history. Further, the article argues that these revolutionary songs, while they can be understood as protest music, do not fit precisely into categories previously delineated for protest songs. Nor do these songs provide a neat answer to the question that scholars so often pose of protest music, to wit: do these songs work to persuade listeners to take an anti-authoritarian position? Depending on ethnographic findings derived from interviews with musicians, disseminators and listeners, I argue that Burmese revolutionary songs are intended to support those already involved in resisting the military regime. The songs’ reception is complicated, suggesting that scholars must be cautious about making liberatory claims for protest music, even in cases such as this, where the lyrics of the songs are unambiguous and well-understood by listeners.
Music & Politics
Sound, music and storytelling are important tools of resistance, resilience and reconciliation in creative practice from protracted conflict to post-conflict contexts. When they are used in a socially engaged participatory capacity, they can create counter-narratives to conflict. Based on original research in three continents, this book advances an interdisciplinary, comparative approach to exploring the role of sonic and creative practices in addressing the effects of conflict. Each case study illustrates how participatory arts genres are variously employed by musicians, arts facilitators, theatre practitioners, community activists and other stakeholders as a means of 'strategic creativity' to transform trauma and promote empowerment. This research further highlights the complex dynamics of delivering and managing creativity among those who have experienced violence, as they seek opportunities to generate alternative arenas for engagement, healing and transformation.
Abstract Sounds, Ecologies, Musics poses exciting challenges and provides fresh opportunities for scholars, scientists, environmental activists, musicians, and listeners to consider music and sound from ecological standpoints. In times of mounting human and planetary crises, Sounds, Ecologies, Musics challenges disciplinarity and broadens the interdisciplinary field of ecomusicologies by probing its contested keywords: sound, music, culture, society, environment, nature. The authors consider music and sound in natural and built environments, in various ecological and environmental frameworks, and in relation to traditional, Indigenous, and Western scientific ecological knowledges. Diverse ecologies are illustrated in the methodological, terminological, and topical variety of the chapters as well as the contributors’ disciplinary backgrounds and selected sources. These theoretical and practical studies expand sonic, scholarly, and political activism from the diversity-equity-inclusion agenda of social justice to embrace the more diverse and inclusive agenda of ecocentric ecojustice.
This book focuses on the traumatic experiences within and through music that individuals and collectives face, while considering ways in which they (re)engage with their traumas in educational settings. The chapters delve into the physical, psychological, philosophical, sociological, and political aspects, as they relate to the reciprocal influences of trauma on musical practices and education. Readers are immersed in topics related to societal violence, physical injuries, grief, separation, loss, death, and ways of working through these in educational and artistic situations. In the introductory chapter, the co-editors draw attention to theoretical matters related to trauma through narrative inquiry in music education. The first section of the book, Separation Revisited, brings together notions of separation, focusing on how loss is emotionally and physically manifested when death, grief, and bodily injury are experienced. In the second section, (Re)Engaging with Lost and Found, readers are encouraged to imagine new possibilities considering trauma and loss in educational and musical spaces. These pieces offer deliberate ruminations moving the discourse toward (re)engagement in and through music education and artistic contexts. The co-editors conclude the book by drawing attention to narrative inquiry’s double-edged nature in stories of trauma and how the retelling of lost and found narratives offers a way to imagine lives otherwise--lives not smothered by grief and horror--through the conceivable reliving of unfathomable stories of experience. This book emerges from the 7th International Conference on Narrative Inquiry in Music Education (NIME7), October 2020, co-hosted by Brock University, Faculty of Education and the University of Toronto, Faculty of Music, Ontario, Canada
Under the recurring headline ‘the Concertina's Deadly Work in the Trenches’, several British newspapers reported in early 1900 that, during the ongoing siege of Mafeking, British army concertina players were capturing enemy soldiers by simply playing strains of the concertina to distract them out of their hiding places. ‘One is sorry to learn that the art of music should be pressed into service to lure persons to destruction’, a commentator in the Musical News noted, but then, it was rationalized, ‘all's fair in war’. This hybrid use of the concertina during the South African War was further employed as a metaphor for the decay of the physical body itself: as has been noted by Elizabeth van Heyningen, food in Boer concentration camps was so meagre that the meat served to prisoners was once described as coming from a ‘carcase [who] looks like a concertina drawn out fully with all the wind knocked out’. Likewise, Krebs (1999) has discussed the presence of the concertina in the trenches as an example of contemporaneous stereotypes about the susceptibility of Boer soldiers to music in relation to perceived notions that they were backwards and easily manipulated. Drawing upon references to music – particularly the ubiquitous, anthropomorphised, instrument of the concertina – in concentration camps during the South African War, this paper will situate the use of British military music at the dawn of the twentieth century within the framework of trauma studies, proposing that the soundscapes of imperial war were implicitly tinged with traces of physical suffering.
Nineteenth-Century Music Review
This study proposes the possibility of how music can be applied and what role it can play in peacebuilding in regions that have experienced strife and conflict. To this end, the concept and definition of peace and peacebuilding were reviewed and arts that could contribute to the creation of a culture of peace were studied and the value and role of music as a nonviolent mechanism and important concepts in peacebuilding through music were explored. In addition, cases of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra consists of Israeli and Arab youth, the Pontanima Inter-Religion Choir of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Inter-Korean Art Group Exchange Performances on the Korean Peninsula in 2018 were reviewed to discuss the significance of their musical activities from the perspective of peacebuilding. As a result of the study, it was partially derived that music could create a space for relationship formation and play a role for dialogue, healing, reconciliation, and solidarity and metaphorically embody peaceful coexistence in the peacebuilding process. It is hoped that various perspectives on peacebuilding through music will be produced through this study and convergence and complex approaches and research in various academic fields such as musicology, music therapy, art, peace studies, sociology, and education will be inspired by it. 이 연구는 분쟁과 갈등을 겪은 지역의 평화구축에 있어 음악이 어떻게 적용될 수 있고 어떤 역할을 할 수 있는지에 대한 가능성을 제안한다. 이를 위하여 평화와 평화구축에 대한 개념과 정의를 검토하고, 평화의 문화 조성에 기여하는 예술에 대해 알아보며, 비폭력적인 기제로서의 음악의 가치와 역할 및 음악을 통한 평화구축에 있어 중요한 개념을 탐색하였다. 또한, 이스라엘과 아랍의 청년들로 구성된 서동시집 오케스트라(West-Eastern Divan Orchestra), 보스니아 헤르체고비나의 폰타니마 종교 간 합창단(Pontanima Inter-Religion Choir)과 2018년 한반도의 남북 예술단 교류 공연의 사례를 고찰하여 이들의 음악 활동의 의의를 평화구축 관점에서 논하였다. 연구결과, 음악은 평화구축 과정에 있어 관계 형성의 공간을 창출하고, 대화, 치유, 화해, 연대를 위한 역할을 할 수 있으며, 평화로운 공존의 모습을 은유적으로 형상화할 수 있다는 사실이 일부 도출되었다. 이 연구를 통하여 음악을 통한 평화구축에 대한 다양한 시각이 양산되어 음악학, 음악치료학, 예술학, 평화학, 사회학, 교육학 등 다양한 학문 분야에서의 융·복합적 접근과 연구가 촉발되기를 기대한다.
Journal of Music Education Science (음악교육공학)
A core focus for this research project is the study of transformative possibilities of small groups. More concretely, this PhD dissertation shows how it is possible to create peace and reconciliation at the community level when that seems almost impossible. To explore how that could be done two dialogues which took place in the North Caucasus were studied in detail (paper 1 and paper 2). These two dialogues with participants from that region were part of a larger peace building project. This research shows how it is possible to use music in certain ways to transform experiences of collective vulnerability characterised by helplessness and hopelessness, so that people in conflict instead can experience profound interconnectedness, trust, a new shared identity, and a shared desire to work for a common goal. Hence, this research project shows how well facilitated collective vulnerability experiences can lead to long lasting transformation, at the individual, group and organisational levels. Indeed, the NGO that organised these dialogues was transformed and became a self-organised organisation. Linking the findings related to the transformations that were observed in the North Caucasus, a self-organised school in Berlin – Evangelische Schule Berlin Zentrum – was studied with respect to its organisation model and educational practices (paper 3). The background for doing this third case study was to find out more about potential benefits and challenges a shift to self-organisation may entail. To study how pupils experience and deal with the freedom, autonomy, and responsibility they are given – core aspects of self-organisation – two of the most important learning practices at the school were studied, namely age mixed classes and tutor teacher talks. The study found that age mixed classes promote autonomy through pupils developing specific metacognitive skills. The study also found that tutor teacher talks are important for pupils and teachers to develop relationships characterised by trust, including developing secure attachment bonds. The results of this study and other studies on self-organised organisations indicate that replacing the traditional power hierarchy with self-organisation principles can have many benefits, and that such organisations can face other types of challenges that can be important to be aware of. The methodological choice for this research project was a case study approach that allowed for studying the unique (and related) phenomena in three cases – based on multiple sources of qualitative data for each case. Data gathering techniques included participant observation and interviews done by multiple researchers. This approach combined with the study of other relevant empirical in other fields, allowed for generating new knowledge with regards to collective vulnerability and related phenomena. In the light of contemporary European and world social scenarios such as the war in Ukraine, the migration crisis, the populist dynamics of politics, the ecological crisis, and challenges within education and organisations, this research can offer significant practical contributions. Copyright© 2022 by Vegar Jordanger All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, or other – without written permission from the copyright holder, except by reviewers, researchers, or writers, who may quote brief passages in a review, articles or books. All rights reserved.
Although UNESCO has a stated aim to incorporate culture into all development policies, culturally integrated approaches to realising the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are arguably yet to gain widespread traction. Focusing on cultural practices relating to music and sound, this article explores the role of culture and cultural policy in advancing the SDGs in the Asia-Pacific, through three case studies. In Indonesia, a local project to document and sustain the music of the Indigenous Marapu people is generative positive health and wellbeing (SDG3), equality (SDG10) and community sustainability (SDG11) outcomes. In Australia, River Listening shows how artistic uses of underwater soundscapes can encourage local communities to learn about, and take action to support, life below water (SDG 14), while also increasing climate awareness and action (SDG13) and advancing sustainable cities and communities (SDG11). In Vanuatu, the Leweton Cultural Village is a community-led cultural enterprise advancing climate justice (SDG13), gender equality (SDG5), culturally appropriate education (SDG4), and economic prospects (SDG8) for the community, as well as increasing its resilience (SDG3). The authors consider how these and other examples might inspire deeper integration of culture, particularly cultural practices featuring music and sound, into policy efforts to achieve the SDGs in the Asia-Pacific.
International Journal of Cultural Policy
American Anthropologist
Open Music Commons: Ethnomusicology Open Educational Resources
This dissertation argues that the process of institutionalizing traditional música llanera (plains region music) education in Venezuela is informed by a hierarchical spatialization of the capital, Caracas, and the historically agricultural- and livestock-producing region known as the llanos, or the plains. Drawing on Lefebvre’s The Production of Space (1991), I argue that the representations of space that have defined the llanos region and música llanera often obscure the lived space of music-making and dwelling in the llanos. This dissertation is based on fieldwork in Guárico state between 2016-2018, where I observed the state-funded Alma Llanera program, which had been recently added to Venezuela’s famed national system of orchestral music education, El Sistema. Many critiques of the institutionalization of traditional musics draw on theories of race and coloniality developed in the academy of the Global North. Instead, my ethnography demonstrates that the production of local spatial categories is more salient for understanding how música llanera is practiced in these programs. I demonstrate that the formation of the llanos as a periphery and as a racialized “natural” region to be preserved for nationalism informs how Venezuelans outside the llanos conceive música llanera. This conceptualization is distinct from how música llanera is defined, valued, and performed in the llanos, which in turn informs Alma Llanera’s pedagogical practices of orchestration, use of music notation, and extra-musical technique. I argue that these practices evidence local concepts of justice which include access to state oil wealth, granting authorship to musicians, and promoting self-sufficiency in daily llanos life.
How do we develop social inclusion through musical activities? What is the power of music in enhancing individual inclusion, group cohesion, and cross-community work in post-conflict environments? How can we investigate social music programmes and interventions? This comprehensive volume offers new research on these questions by an international team of experts from the fields of music education, music psychology, ethnomusicology, and community music. The book celebrates the rich diversity of ways in which learners of all ages participate in social music projects in complex settings. Contributions focus broadly on musical and social processes, considering its conceptualisation and practices in a number of contexts. The authors examine how social music projects can be fostered in complex settings, drawing examples from schools and community settings. These critical chapters will inspire readers to think deeply about social music interventions and their development. The book will be of crucial interest to educators, policymakers, researchers, and students, as it draws on applied research from across 14 countries, of which ten are in the Global South.
This article outlines an engaged ethnomusicology called Music for Global Human Development (M4GHD), fostering human development through sustainable music-centred community collaborations. Human development —a human process of upholding human value by reinforcing the I-thou essence of human connection — is impeded by dehumanization resulting from the mediation of personal relationships through an impersonal world system. Theoretically, the M4GHD model builds upon the Habermasian duality of system and lifeworld. But maintenance of the lifeworld — locus of human value — depends not only on rational “communicative action” (as per Habermas), but equally on affective social connectivity, constructed through the soundworld, where feedback loops of thoughtfeeling produce socio-sonic resonance. The method is Participatory Action Research (PAR), forging collaborative community-engaged networks, drawing outsider and insider participants into a shared, resonant soundworld, thereby transforming awareness and practice. After outlining problem, theory, and method, this article offers several examples illustrating how resonant networks of PAR in ethnomusicology have the potential to transform community and network towards global human development, and development of the global human.
MUSICultures
Music is central in the lives of adolescents. While listening is usually the most common form of engagement, many adolescents also learn music formally by participating in school-based and extracurricular programs. This study examined positive youth development (PYD), school connectedness (SC), and hopeful future expectations (HFE) in middle school students (N= 120) with four levels of musical participation in school-based and extracurricular music programs. Levels of participation were based on students’ engagement in different music programs, including the Virtual Middle School Music Enrichment (VMSME), a tuition-free, extracurricular program that focuses on popular music education and virtual learning. We also investigated student listening preferences, musical tuition, and daily instrumental practicing.
Frontiers in Psychology
Open Music Commons: Ethnomusicology Open Educational Resources
What can be learned from musically encountering others beyond music? Quietude is an attempt to answer this question, a holistic ethnography of the expressive lives of Korean first and second-generation victims of the atomic bombing of Japan, focused on the everyday arts of living that they employ to make life possible and worthwhile. The book documents the practically unknown history of Korean experiences of the atomic bombs and their aftermath, focused on the large community of victims—former residents of Hiroshima and their children—living in Hapcheon, South Korea. It considers victims’ uses of voice, speech, song, and movement in the struggle for national and global recognition, in the ongoing work of negotiating the traumatic past, and in the effort to consolidate and maintain selves and relationships in the present. It attempts to explain the multifaceted atmosphere of quiet that predominates in “Korea’s Hiroshima” by focusing on the poetics of endurance, refusal, and self-effacement in the face of discrimination, the atomic experience, and its politicization.
This paper explores sound at the intersection between urban envir onments and conflict, specifically extracted from a particular case of aerial bombardment that occurred during the 2006 war on Lebanon. To formulate an argument on the long-lasting and trau matic sonic repercussions during military operations; sound studies and architectural environments would coalesce to unearth the unseen, yet extremely sensed assaults during this war. Here, I look at Reverberations as the product of both sound and the built surrounding, where it operates as a method to read the subtle, extended yet affective impacts of contemporary military conflict. I therefore argue that the initial impact’s sound is rather bypassed, and the auditory focus shifted on its tail as a sonic phenomenon that is amplified and channelled by the urban morphology. This research relies on multiple analytical, theoretical, and practical resources spanning from spectrograms to sonic mapping. Those means serve to illustrate the behaviour of sound during conflict in a compressed urban environment. Paired with its cognitive and visceral responses, this method offers greater accounts on the victims that weren’t directly targeted by aerial assaults.
Sound Studies
Purpose – The purpose of this study was to understand the changes in the social fabric of victims of forced displacement in Colombia as a result of these events, as well as the contributions of belonging to a collective musical program in reconstructing the social fabric of the participants. In Latin America, the metaphor of social fabric is used to represent the web of social relations that shape society. A five-year doctoral investigation sought to understand the changes in the social fabric of victims of forced displacement in Colombia resulting from these events, as well as the contributions of belonging to a collective musical program in reconstructing the social fabric of the participants. The study was undertaken using a qualitative approach and simple statistics, with which were analyzed 14 life stories and 70 sound postcards across seven families, who were victims of violence and belonged to the musical program in question. The research identified as key elements of the social fabric: networks, cohesive or divisive tangible resources, precarious or sufficient tangible resources, the experiences.
Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research
"This open access book asks how have auditory environments in different contexts contributed to understanding imperial occupation, and how has it given rise to historical music cultures? How are sound and music implicated in the state control and discipline of people? Exploring case studies of foreign occupation from around the world, Visual Histories of Occupation seeks to answer these questions and more. Examining how an emphasis on auditory culture adds complexity and nuance to understanding the relationship between occupation and the bodily senses, this book is structured around three conceptual themes; voice and occupation, memory, sound and occupation, and auditory responses to occupation. Highlighting case studies in Asia, the Middle East, North America and Europe contributors employ a range of theoretical approaches to examine histories of imperialism and the auditory legacies they created, and contribute to a wider dialogue about the relationship between sound and imperial projects across political and temporal boundaries. The open access edition of this book is available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the European Research Council"--
Music is a human universal and has the ability to evoke powerful, genuine emotions. But does music influence our capacity to understand and feel with others? A growing body of evidence indicates that empathy (sharing another’s feelings) and compassion (a feeling of concern toward others) are behaviorally and neutrally distinct, both from each other and from the social–cognitive process theory of mind (ToM; i.e., inferring others’ mental states). Yet little is known as to whether and how these dissociable routes to feeling with and understanding others can be independently modulated. The goal of the current study was to investigate if emotional music has the potential to enhance social affect and/or social cognition. Using a naturalistic, video-based paradigm which disentangles empathy, compassion, and ToM, we demonstrate selective enhancement of social affect through music during the videos. Specifically, we found enhanced empathy and compassion when emotional, but not when neutral music was present during videos displaying emotionally negative narrations. No such enhancement was present for ToM performance. Similarly, prosocial decision making increased after emotionally negative videos with emotional music. These findings demonstrate how emotional music can enhance empathic responding, compassion and prosocial decisions as well as contribute to the growing evidence for separable processes within the social mind.
Emotion
The Routledge Companion to Music and Human Rights is a collection of case studies spanning a wide range of concerns about music and human rights in response to intensifying challenges to the well-being of individuals, peoples, and the planet. It brings forward the expertise of academic researchers, lawyers, human rights practitioners, and performing musicians who offer critical reflection on how their work might identify, inform, or advance mutual interests in their respective fields. The book is comprised of 28 chapters, interspersed with 23 ‘voices’ – portraits that focus on individuals’ intimate experiences with music in the defence or advancement of human rights – and explores the following four themes: 1) Fundamentals on music and human rights; 2) Music in pursuit of human rights; 3) Music as a means of violating human rights; 4) Human rights and music: intrinsic resonances.
The main focus of this article is the explanatory power that music has in Confucianism ac‑cording to the Analects (Lunyu 論語) and The Classic of Rites (Liji 禮記), which is reaffirmed in the Song Dynasty by Zhou Dunyi in the chapters on music in Tongshu ( 通書, The Penetrating Book). The article suggests that Tongshu’s chapters on music demonstrate the non‑linear and non‑metaphysical musi‑cal nature of Confucianism. According to this suggestion, the chapters introduce a dynamic, living model for the Confucian Way, on its own terms. This musical model supports the early Confucian vision of a multifaceted person, progressing in a multi‑dimensional Way within a multi‑layered poly‑semic world. Progressing along the Way, self‑cultivation appears as one’s task to develop the various musical potentialities inherent in her or himself. The article opens with the epistemological idea of “musical knowledge” acquired by attuned hearing that winds up in a creative, peacemaking heart. Next, it introduces the ontological idea of a government that models cosmic harmony, depicting the leader as having an orchestral conductor’s aptitude; last, it presents a pragmatic perspective on the idea of musical education through the rules of propriety, depicting the practitioner as a skillful music player.
Religions
There is evidence that music programmes can have a positive impact on people in contact with the criminal justice system. However, little attention has been paid to the potential role of music programmes as people leave prison and re-enter the community. Providing support for former prisoners 'through-the-gate' is important to aid resettlement and reduce risk of reoffending. This paper presents research on a programme called Sounding Out: a two year, London-based programme, providing ex-prisoners with longer-term rehabilitative opportunities upon their release to bridge the gap between life inside and outside of prison. The study aimed to understand the impact of the Sounding Out programme on ex-prisoners from the perspective of participants, staff and family members. Semi-structured interviews took place with 17 people: 10 participants across two Sounding Out projects; six members of staff - three from the Irene Taylor Trust, two musicians, and one former prison worker; and one family member of a participant. The research provides an understanding of the impact of involvement in a carefully designed programme of music creation, skills development, and work placements. Thematic analysis of the data resulted in three key themes: personal impact; focus and direction; interpersonal relationships. The findings are consistent with the body of research that demonstrates the impact of music programmes on prisoners.
Journal of Criminal Psychology
Musicians face particular communication and identity challenges when working with music and people from other cultural groups. Those challenges impede efforts to promote intergroup projects and rapport. Intercultural communication studies have made significant contributions in understanding how people work and live across cultures but do not explicate the unique ways in which professional musicians engage internationally. Thus, there is a need to research musicians’ intercultural practice and identity development. This qualitative study addresses the gap through three research questions: 1) What aspects of intercultural communication and identity processes are significant to musicians when they begin intercultural music practice? 2) What challenges do musicians report during intercultural music projects? 3) What keeps musicians engaged in intercultural music practice in the long term? Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 music professionals engaged in intercultural music-making with questions about their projects and experiences. These were complemented with field notes from observations of six respondents’ live concerts. Recordings and written accounts relating to participants were also collected from the internet to inform the analysis. Purposive sampling and theory-led thematic analysis were guided by a priori themes developed from Young Yun Kim’s and Etienne Wenger’s theoretical framework. Kim’s Integrative Theory of Communication and Cross-cultural Adaptation and Wenger’s Communities of Practice theory place individuals’ music careers into intercultural and social learning contexts. The theoretical notion of boundaries - boundary crossing and boundary learning - has also been used to address socio-cultural differences that result in discontinuities in activities and interactions. Codes were arranged under a three-part dynamic of encounter, stress, and learning, which describes how individuals cross groups and work on differences perceived. The findings delineate how musicians experience and learn at musical and cultural boundaries mixedly. Music enabled them to coordinate temporarily by providing nonverbal routines, working arrangements, enjoyments, and promising identities essential in motivating individuals to start intercultural music practice. However, language proficiency, social communication, and cultural adaptations become more critical as musicians work long-term across cultures, organise complicated projects, and negotiate nuanced meanings. Although respondents may state cosmopolitan ideals and intercultural objectives, their focus often gravitated back towards musical issues that emerged in their performance and organising work. Finally, respondents’ experiences suggest that organisers with intergroup mediation objectives should consider arranging language training and designing for meaningful intercultural experiences. It is beneficial for musicians to know what cross-cultural communication and adaptation would be expected and how to seek cultural informants’ help. The findings contribute to theory by offering a novel manifestation of professional musicians’ intercultural activities as boundary phenomena. The diverse cultural experiences told from the musicians’ perspectives enriches our social and psychological understanding of intercultural challenges. These musicians’ projects and words demonstrate how crossing boundaries, with mutual interest and creative adaptation in musical activities, opens up possibilities for new intercultural collaborations, rapport, ideas, and identities.
“America’s Choral Response to Police Brutality: Critical Music in the Age of Black Lives Matter” This 113-page written Project examines three modern choral works that respond to America’s ongoing issue of police brutality against Black people. Through interviews with composers Courtney Bryan, Adolphus Hailstork, and Joel Thompson, who are all African American, as well as the conductors who premiered their work, the author sheds light on a relatively unexplored body of choral repertoire and makes a case for its purposeful creation, dissemination, and programming. The study includes compositional analyses of the works themselves, as well as conductor strategies for navigating the political sensitivities surrounding the topic of police brutality. The author also commissioned a new work by composer Brianna Ware on Elijah McClain.
Intractable conflict coupled with deep poverty often reinforce socio-psychological conflict-repertoires. Transforming repertoires can contribute to sustainable peace. Increasingly, development NGOs utilise arts-based programming to provide community spaces for exploring peace-oriented repertoires. Yet arts-based processes are poorly theorised in the development literature. We present a case-study arts-based peacebuilding programme embedded in intra-ethnic Rakhine asset-based community development (Myanmar). Arts-based components help build comprehension and retention of peace concepts, and motivation/confidence to apply new knowledge to daily interactions, supporting the overall aim of shifting conflict-repertoires. We show art-based activities as reflective learning processes produced modest-yet-significant shifts in repertoires, thereby contributing to sustainable peacebuilding.
The European Journal of Development Research
This article describes the role of a Palestinian cultural institution—the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music (ESNCM)—in creating national infrastructure and cultural ambassadorship that is part and parcel of the project of legitimizing Palestine, and Palestinian modernity, on the world stage. The focus on cultural production provides the ethnographic basis for analyzing the interface, alongside inherent tensions, occurring between the aid economy set up in Palestine to support international interests in the name of “state building” and “peacemaking,” and local moves and desires—in a context in which state building, colonization and occupation are all happening simultaneously. While postcolonial readings of the aid economy in Palestine view it as a neocolonial intervention detrimental to Palestinian society and its struggle for liberation, this study points to a much more dynamic process that shows how both the accommodation of foreign interests, and the assertion of Palestinian agency, work (and do not work), in tandem. Moving away from domination-resistance binaries and associated essentialisms, the article analyzes the evolving and changing meanings awarded to music making, locally and globally, in the political and performative moment. The article also ponders the growing role of nationalized cultural production in a context of the ever-shrinking geography within which it can be actualized.
Arts & International Affairs
The goal of this article is to share five crucial ways of thinking about the most effective ways to apply music in peacebuilding activities. It is based on the presentation I gave for the online summit on Music, Business and Peace on May 12, 2017, on work done since then, and on elements of an exhibition on Music and Human Rights held by our institute (MOMRI) in Tokyo during the first half of 2018.
Music, Business and Peacebuilding
The founding philosophy of many cultural events established after the Second World War was to enhance the dynamics of peace through supporting and developing multicultural understanding. Over 50 years after their establishment, this chapter investigates the potential of such iconic events to achieve this aim and contribute to the concept of peace through tourism, based on a longitudinal ethnographic case study of Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod. The results show that this aim can be achieved by such events if they provide enough time and space for participants (performers and audiences) to interact. However, the study also identifies current cultural, political, and fiscal challenges in providing these temporal and physical spaces.
Role and impact of tourism in peacebuilding and conflict transformation
The objective of this study was to analyse the changes in social fabric caused by the armed conflict in Colombia among people who had been the victims of forced displacement and who, when arriving in the new places, participate in a musical-social programme. The study was conducted using testimonies from interviews and in the form of sound postcards, an ethnographic research tool. Twenty-one interviews with 14 interviewees in the Music for Reconciliation (MFR) programme of the Batuta National Foundation (BNF) and their families were analysed, and 70 sound postcards, revealing the meaning of interviewees’ sonic landscapes, or soundscapes, in their everyday lives. Their sound environments were found to have changed significantly; having been rural before forced displacement they became urban, and there were also changes in interviewees’ social bonds with people and relationships to objects in the environment. The study reveals a significant change in their sound landscapes before and after forced displacement and analyses the impact of these sonic landscapes and their meaning in the everyday lives of the participants. Finally, the use of sound postcards highlights MFR music centres as places where displaced people can be helped to form new bonds. The sound environment of these music centres give meaning to music making, generating positive feelings and providing participants with an emotional support network.
Musicae Scientiae
The Sri Lanka Norway Music Cooperation (2009–2018) was launched to ‘stimulate the performing arts in Sri Lanka, thus contributing to the peace and reconciliation process’ in the aftermath of almost three decades of civil war between the Tamil minority and Sinhala majority populations of the island. Funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the project had many local and international stakeholders, from artists and civil society organisations, to government institutions, to a general public eager for enrichment through arts and culture. But despite high engage ment and financial investment, the achievements of the SLNMC were generally unremarkable and short-term. This article argues that competi tion and incompatibility between stakeholders within the SLNMC were major reasons for the project´s equivocal legacies. We analyse stakeholder investments in the SLNMC through the lens of Boltanski and Thevenot’s theory of justification and their conceptualization of worlds of legitima tion (‘Economies of Worth’). Our findings indicate that while artistic prac tices have promising compatibility and complementarity with social goals like reconciliation, the accommodation of political interests, donor agen das, and domestic pressures can undermine the possibility of artisticsocial projects reaching a higher common good.
International Journal of Cultural Policy
In settings of conflict and hardship, education can be a portal through which future lives are imagined. Experiences of schooling are thus tied closely to the generation of hope and the transformation of young lives. The goal of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), a vocational music school in Kabul, is to transform lives through music and education, by restoring music practices, cultural rights, and the country’s relationships with the rest of the world. Hope is central to this multi-faceted project and is cultivated within the school, strategically, as a source of protection and a driver of desired change.
Musicae Scientiae
When does war end and peace begin? Does commemoration serve indelibly to bracket conflict from post–conflict? In this article, I argue that memorial rituals serve to extend an ongoing conflict by concealing retribution in the guise of reconciliation. With specific reference to the centennial commemoration of the Gallipoli Campaign (2015), I focus on a musical performance of the iconic number entitled: Çanakkale Türküsü (lit. ‘The Dardanelles Folksong’) sponsored by the Turkish Navy, which was broadcast on Turkish television to mark the centennial celebration of the Gallipoli landings. The message of the performance is one of power, a resurgent Turkey on the high seas of world diplomacy – and also one of normality, a tacit recognition that war is every day. Significantly, the musical arrangement of the famous folksong is socially organised to emphasise consensus and inclusiveness. Further, the musical performance reinforces the theme of reconciliation between old enemies from abroad and new enemies at home. That the event was scheduled to coincide with the centennial commemoration of the Armenian deportations is no coincidence. In this way, a song of reconciliation might become a song of retribution by extending a longstanding conflict into an era that is apparently post conflict.
Ethnomusicology Forum
Many features of music contribute to its positive potential for promoting social harmony. But music’s influence on human interaction is not entirely benign. I consider features of music that enable it to serve such contrary projects, beginning by itemizing some of the mechanisms through which music creates feeling of solidarity among people. The very mechanisms that enable music to create solidarity can solidify bonds within sectarian groups that identify themselves in opposition to non-members. Music can also incite action because it activates the motor system, and when channeled into serving a propagandistic aim, it can promote action in the direction that has been cued. Because music entrains people rhythmically, it motivates acting in tandem, potentially fostering unquestioning allegiance to a cause. I go on to suggest four strategies for utilizing music to advance peace and other humanizing ends. First, efforts should be made to promote engagement with music that helps develop receptivity, empathy, and other peacebuilding attitudes and skills. Second, music education should make efforts to pre-empt the tendency to identify music with “us” or with “them.” Third, opportunities should be created for people to engage in “participatory performance,” which can transform people from relative strangers into shared musical participants. Fourth, musical hybridization, in which elements of diverse kinds of music are utilized in new musical forms, should be fostered. Music can demonstrate that engaging in creative and expressive activity with others can be enhanced, not diminished, by interaction with those outside one’s in-group, but we need to create the circumstances in which this can happen.
Music, Business and Peacebuilding
The Routledge Companion to Applied Performance
Popular music with prosocial lyrics affects listeners’ thoughts, emotions and behavior, yet little is known about the role played by the actual music in this process. This study focused on the interaction between the prosocial lyrics and the musical production elements, examining whether certain versions of a song can enhance the effect of prosocial lyrics on thoughts, emotions and behavior. Based on the general learning model and the reciprocal-feedback model of music perception, a laboratory experiment (N = 136) was conducted to test how listeners are affected by music with prosocial or neutral lyrics and by an electronic or an unplugged version of the music. For this purpose, an original song was composed and produced, using the same melodies and harmonies with varied lyrics and instrumentation. In a pilot study (n = 36), a version with acoustic instrumentation was rated as the most emotional and fitting, whereas an electronic dance version was rated as the least emotional and fitting. There was a significant interaction effect between the lyrics and the musical production elements: Those listening to the unplugged version with prosocial lyrics showed the most empathetic emotions. Prosocial lyrics also had an effect on prosocial thoughts but not on behavior.
Psychology of Music
The “emotion curve” is a creative methodology that asks research participants to express in graphic form changes in their emotional responses over time, reflecting on a given time period or on a particular activity or event (in our case, music-based activities). This methodology was developed as part of our research with community music-making NGO Musicians Without Borders at their “Music Bridge” participatory music and movement training program in Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland. This article discusses how the “post-conflict” context of our research, and our engagement with the principles of prefiguration and participatory action research, shaped the development of this innovative methodology, paying particular attention to achieving methodological “fit” (or commensurability) with the practices, objectives, and ethos of our research partners. This creative and “fitting” (or commensurate) methodology has been the basis of a “mutually transformative dialog” with our research partners.
International Review of Qualitative Research
The aim of this paper is to present how the “Street Vendors Popular Syndicate of Barcelona”, a bottom-up organisation composed mainly by undocumented Senegalese migrants, develops political narratives and repertoires of actions through rap music and clothing design. Despite the precarious situations and multifaceted forms of ‘illegality’ that the sindicato members face, this unconventional political organisation is still characterized by high and complex levels of visibility, support and creativity. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this article analyses two artistic projects developed by the collective: the rap song “This is the Syndicate” and the clothing brand “Top Manta”. In doing so, the research shows that the sindicato has been effective in empowering through arts and redefining the multiple stigmas of ‘illegality’ targeting the organisation. In a nutshell, this paper provides a better understanding of undocumented migrants’ political solidarity and promising artistic creativity despite precarity and multifaceted discrimination in Southern European countries.
AmeriQuests
In this paper, we test a widely accepted assumption in literature, namely, that due to its universal(istic) and humanistic character aiming to transcend ethnic boundaries, art is an effective tool for overcoming inter-ethnic divisions, and further, that people consider art effective to this specific purpose. To test this assumption, we ran a socio-psychological experiment at different universities in Bosnia–Herzegovina. Students were asked to assess the aesthetic value of the selected art installation, but were given different names, sur names and city of the artist, since names and places tend to indicate ethnicity in Bosnia–Herzegovina. We hypothesized that the stu dents would attach greater value to the work of an artist perceived to belong to their ethnic group than that of one thought to belong to another group. The results revealed that the artist’s perceived ethnicity did not play a role in evaluating the value of the work presented. The findings demonstrate that the ‘the other’ in Bosnia–Herzegovina is not always perceived through an ethno-political lens as the literature often suggests. Furthermore, it found that art per se is not necessarily perceived as an effective tool for bridging interethnic divides.
Southeast European and Black Sea Studies
Journal of Peacebuilding & Development
There are numerous young asylum seekers and unaccompanied migrant minors around the globe. A comprehensive literature review revealed that post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the most common disorder that affects the asylum seeker youth and migrant minor populations. Many of these individuals struggle with PTSD and show resilience in their daily lives while also learning, discovering, and surviving. Accordingly, therapeutic interventions directed to them must be trauma-informed, phased, engaging, empowering, and impactful to support the needs of these young people. A seven-month-long music therapy intervention experience that was applied to young asylum seekers in Spain, and found that the most effective intervention tools were Hip Hop Therapy-related interventions. This study resulted in a new intervention model, The Integral Hip Hop Methodology. This paper highlights the importance that intervention models be engaging and considerate to the necessities and preferences of the addressed population and presents The Integral Hip Hop Methodology as an example.
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy
During the Northern Ireland conflict (1968–1998), paramilitary groups were supported and sustained by a sociocultural apparatus that helped legitimise their position within the community and disseminate their political message. From the use of flags and murals, to loyalist and republican parades, workingclass vernacular culture revealed who was in control of various districts within the Province. For many working-class Protestants, loyalist songs were a key component of this culture, connecting the past and the present. Unlike the better-known marching band scene, which is a huge public spectacle, the loyalist song scene is much more private. Performed in a closed setting, within local bars and clubs, loyalist songs are reproduced for internal consumption rather than outward expression. Yet, in addition to celebrating a particular loyalist culture, such songs also serve an important function in authenticating and legitimising paramilitary groups, connecting them to older organisations, whose legacy they draw upon. This paper focuses on one such song, exploring how ‘The Ballad of Billy McFadzean’ is used to connect the Ulster Volunteer Force of the 1960s onwards, with the 1913 organisation of the same name. In so doing, the paper attempts to illustrate the political utility of song and how songs can be used to launder and legitimise conflict, as well as those engaged in political violence.
Ethnomusicology Forum
Empirical studies in the creative arts therapies (CATs; i.e., art therapy, dance/movement therapy, drama therapy, music therapy, psychodrama, and poetry/bibliotherapy) have grown rapidly in the last 10 years, documenting their positive impact on a wide range of psychological and physiological outcomes (e.g., stress, trauma, depression, anxiety, and pain). However, it remains unclear how and why the CATs have positive effects, and which therapeutic factors account for these changes. Research that specifically focuses on the therapeutic factors and/or mechanisms of change in CATs is only beginning to emerge. To gain more insight into how and why the CATs influence outcomes, we conducted a scoping review (Nstudies = 67) to pinpoint therapeutic factors specific to each CATs discipline, joint factors of CATs, and more generic common factors across all psychotherapy approaches. This review therefore provides an overview of empirical CATs studies dealing with therapeutic factors and/or mechanisms of change, and a detailed analysis of these therapeutic factors which are grouped into domains. A framework of 19 domains of CATs therapeutic factors is proposed, of which the three domains are composed solely of factors unique to the CATs: “embodiment,” “concretization,” and “symbolism and metaphors.” The terminology used in change process research is clarified, and the implications for future research, clinical practice, and CATs education are discussed.
Frontiers in Psychology
The project On the Wings of a Piano . . . I Learn to Fly was developed with four women in custody inside a Portuguese prison during 2013–2014 over a period of eight months. Weekly individual sessions focused on improvisation, composition, memorization, and learning repertoire. This one-to-one work with participants resulted in the presentation of three distinct public performances in different contexts and for different audiences. Community music principles of decentralization, accessibility and equal opportunity were the foundation of a strong triangular relationship between the participants, the music they played on the piano, and the facilitator. With the narrative of each participant at its core, this article explores different ways in which this project can be identified as community music, despite the emphasis on individual work with each of the participants. The importance of adapting to each participant’s personal needs, requests and skills is highlighted, as well as the value of the affection developed between facilitator and participants. The subjectivity inherent in the involvement of the facilitator as a researcher is discussed, and the pedagogic outcomes of the project are also considered as an important contribution to research on music in prisons.
Musicae Scientiae
This article presents an analytical framework for systematically studying the relationships portrayed within music-based peacebuilding and their respective representations of peace. Music activities with peacebuilding objectives work predominantly within a relational concept of peace, bringing into existence relationships between sounds, people and spaces through which behaviours such as non-dominance and cooperation can be enacted. However, each of these relationships can communicate different ideas about peace and its manifestation, communications that may be inconsistent with each other and with the activity’s peaceful intentions. The ‘harmonious relations’ framework that this article introduces is a tool for capturing and analysing these embedded relationships and representations. It uses concepts of harmony as a heuristic for critically appraising music’s potential contributions to peace in development contexts, synthesising ideas about relationships in peace and music from peace studies, musicology, philosophy and anthropology. The case of the Zohra Ensemble from Afghanistan illustrates its application.
Journal of Peacebuilding & Development
Difference and Division in Music Education enriches existing diversity and social justice discourses by considering the responsibility of music education to respond to rising social discord and tensions. Although ‘hate’ is by no means a new concern for policymakers, educators, or musicians, the climate of fast communications, divisive politics, and intensified encounters with ‘difference’ has framed expressions of hate as a rising social problem to which we cannot afford complacency. This edited volume of ten contributed essays approaches ‘hate’ not as a monstrous aberration, but as a product of late modernity entangled within the complex power-relations that frame both governance and agency at the policy, institutional, and interpersonal levels. Schools, universities, and community organisations have been positioned on the front lines of addressing ‘hate’ and cultivating a healthy society. In recognising that music education is always both inclusive and exclusive, this volume interrogates the social norms and values that comprise the ‘common good’ and simultaneously cast certain musics, expressions, individuals, or social groups as different, divisive, hateful, or hated. Difference and Division in Music Education highlights the ethical and political dimensions of teaching and learning music across a number of geographical, cultural, and educational contexts and through a rich variety of perspectives.
Difference and Division in Music Education
Music provides unique opportunities to interrogate difficult issues including narcoviolence. Scholarly and media representations of those working for Mexican organised criminal groups are often one-dimensional, and fail to engage fully with their human experience. Drawing on music-focused ethnographic research, I argue in this article that subjects who participate in organised crime are made grievable and human through the portraits that commissioned rappers empathetically create of them. I explore how narco rap songs portray organised criminals as brave, respectable, able to cope with emotional trauma and attain redemption, while effacing physical suffering and guilt. I interrogate how commissioned rappers read and empathise with their clients, create appropriate songs, and negotiate the moral dissonances this work creates, particularly when religious figures are invoked. I conclude that the human complexity of those working for organised criminal groups and their ethical struggles must be engaged with if we are to propose action on drug trafficking and related activities.
Ethnomusicology Forum
Music has the power to promote peace in the society as evidenced in this study. The paper adopts the Ubuntu Journalism Theory to analyse Victor Kunonga’s songs that activate and sensitise people about peace, human rights, human dignity, social justice, and social cohesiveness in Zimbabwe. The paper adopts qualitative research methods to explore the relationship between Kunonga’s songs and peace-making. Using discourse analysis, the paper finds out that Kunonga uses the power of language to promote a sense of togetherness. He uses ChiShona, English, and IsiNdebele to support the concepts of human rights for peace, non-violence, peace sensitivity, justice, culture of peace, and peace education. The paper concludes that Kunonga exploits the reach, spread, as well as acceptance of his music among Zimbabweans to preach the need for peace and co-existence. His music acts as a peacemaker, mediator, and the voice of the voiceless.
AfriFuture Research Bulletin
Ethnomusicology Forum
Accounts of human trafficking suggest music’s uniquely insidious role for victims forcibly trafficked into strip club-based sex work, wherein music is ubiquitous. In sociological fieldwork, sex workers and trafficking victims testify to various effects of musical sound: against their will, the onset of music commands bodies to perform erotic dance, and songs’ formal and rhythmic features compel forms of movement. In situations of strip club-based trafficking, events of musicalsound therefore amount to coercion – itself defined as a form of sexual violence by the World Health Organization. Comprehending structures of trafficking victims’ abjection requires communicative,semiotic understandings of coercion’s mechanisms, and must resist conflating violence andphysical materiality. Building on J. L. Austin’s theorization of how verbal utterances perform certain kinds of semiotic actions, I argue that musical sound can behave like certain assaultive and coercive speech acts: acts of signaling that command sexual performances from trafficking victims within gross power asymmetries. A discourse analysis of the public forum online “The Ultimate Strip Club List” (TUSCL), which hosts discussions amongst both sex workers and patrons of strip clubs, suggests situations where the entanglement of sound and materiality loses explanatory and emancipatory power to critique music’s injurious capacities.
Sound Studies
Music in Conflict studies the complex relationship of musical culture to political life in Palestine-Israel, where conflict has both shaped and claimed the lives of Palestinians and Jews. In the context of the geography of violence that characterizes the conflict, borders and boundaries are material and social manifestations of the ways in which the production of knowledge is conditioned by political and structural violence. Ethical and aesthetic positions that shape artistic production in this context are informed by profound imbalances of power and contingent exposure to violence. Viewing expressive culture as a potent site for understanding these dynamics, the book examines the politics of sound to show how music-making reflects and forms identities, and in the process, shapes communities. The ethnography is based on fieldwork conducted in Israel and the West Bank in 2011–2012 and other excursions since then. Author has "followed the conflict" by "following the music," from concert halls to demonstrations, mixed-city community centers to Palestinian refugee camp children’s clubs, alternative urban scenes and even a checkpoint. In all the different contexts presented, the monograph is thematically and theoretically underpinned by the ways in which music is used to culturally assert or reterritorialize both spatial and social boundaries in a situation of conflict.
This dissertation explores the involvement of U.S. composers in Vietnam War protest. The Vietnam War period was a fraught time in U.S. history. Strongly held and antithetical opinions about American involvement in the conflict prompted widespread social unrest and protest. During these turbulent years, many art music composers voiced their opposition to the war through their musical works, through protest concerts, and through non-musical activities. By considering some of these composers and their works in the context of the antiwar movement, changing understandings of American national identity, and the cultural connotations of art music, this dissertation seeks to arrive at a deeper understanding of the experiences of U.S. composers during the Vietnam War. I expose the broad range of ways in which composers responded to this controversial conflict through a selection of case studies addressing specific composers, musical works, and protest events. By focusing on individual case studies grounded in archival research and musical and textual analysis, I explore the nuances of different types of art music protest as well as their role within the antiwar movement. In addition to exploring these specific examples of protest, the case studies in this dissertation illuminate larger themes at work within musical responses to the conflict: an understanding of music and politics as essentially intertwined; shifting conceptions of U.S. national identity; preoccupation with meaning and words; similarities and differences between the Vietnam War and prior U.S. military conflicts; and the implications of the cultural connotations of art music on its protest activities.
Researchers working within the field of music and society often comment that they wish to use their research for the betterment of society and individuals, wherever possible. In many cases, this process of betterment requires some sort of behavioral change—whether this is changing poor habits to promote healthy living and thinking or changing destructive behavior in order to lead more productive and connected lives. It can increasingly be seen in the world today that social behavior has a complex array of influences and motivations and rarely is empirical evidence one of them. No amount of thoroughly researched evidence or logically developed arguments influences this behavior. Brexit and the Trump administration are two examples of this phenomenon. What seems to influence this seemingly bizarre social behavior is a collective belief in a narrative. The narrative needs to speak to common emotions, senses of identities and memories, but it does not need to necessarily be supported by empirical evidence to be effective. There is a need to understand this power of narrative in the public discourse if we are to truly influence how public policy engages with music.
Music & Science
Music not only regulates mood but also promotes the development and maintenance of empathy and social understanding. Since empathy is crucial for well-being and indispensable in social life, it is necessary to develop strategies to improve empathy and prosocial behaviors. To fulfill this aim, researchers have extensively investigated the effect of intensive musical training on the development of empathy. Here, we first summarize evidence showing the powerful influence of musical training on the development of empathy and then discuss psychological mechanisms responsible for those observations. The conclusions drawn from most previous studies were mainly based on behavioral measurements, while the neural basis of musical training in the development of the empathic brain is still unclear. Fortunately, brain imaging research has contributed greatly to our understanding of the neural underpinnings associated with musical training and its possible connection to the development of the empathic brain. One of the most distinctive signatures of musical training is structural and functional changes of multiple brain regions, and such changes might be related to some of the empathic behaviors observed in musically trained children. Therefore, intensive musical training in childhood may increase levels of empathy, and applied research is required to optimize the training strategy before implementing music education in empathy regulation. Moreover, future longitudinal studies are needed to better understand neural mechanisms underlying the causal effect of musical training on empathy development. These findings have important implications for understanding the development of the empathic brain and for improving prosocial behaviors.
Frontiers in Psychology
This article examines the ways in which music making can inspire and facilitate social change amongst the “society of captives.” It explores the social dynamics of prison music projects, and then looks at the ways in which music making can begin to transform the wider social world of prison. It reports a qualitative investigation of two such projects delivered by the Irene Taylor Trust (ITT) in a medium-security, adult male prison in England. Methods comprised participant observations of the projects over a period of 14 months, and semi-structured interviews with prisoner participants, facilitators, and members of prison staff.
Musicae Scientiae
Research about Palestinians in Israel during the period of military rule from 1948 to 1966 describes them as acquiescent and primarily focuses on the mechanisms of control imposed by Israel. This article examines the role played by improvised sung poetry in Palestinian weddings and social gatherings during this period, and it assesses the contribution that this situated art form made to asserting this community’s agency. Ḥaddā’ (male) and Badāaʿa (female) poet-singers are considered as agents of cultural resilience, songs as tools and weddings as sites of resilience and resistance for Palestinians who lived under Israeli military rule. Folk poetry performed by Ḥaddā’ and Badāaʿa is identified as a form of cultural resilience and resistance rooted in Palestinians’ cultural heritage. The data signal the persistence of resilience, dignity and rootedness in the land and identity, as well as demonstrating the risks of such resilience and of resistance actions.
International Journal of Middle East Studies
Musical performances are frequently used in peacebuilding initiatives. Can performing music together indeed change interpersonal and intergroup perceptions of the other as the enemy? Using contact theory for our theoretical framework, we hypothesize that the specific mechanism of listening during active musicmaking helps to establish the positive effects of intergroup contact. Additionally, we explore to what extent participants become peace facilitators when returning to their home environments. In two small-scale studies, we find preliminary support for active listening as a mechanism of trust-enhancing contact. However, this effect mainly surfaces in unstructured encounters within the larger organized structure, like late-night chamber music jam sessions. Repeated participation builds the necessary trust for a new common ingroup. Because participation is mostly driven by career and performance motivations, we argue that peacebuilding through musical performances may help overcome the common selection bias in research on contact theory.
Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology
This article reports a two-part study into the prosocial impacts of third sector cultural activities with children and adolescents in impoverished and violence-stricken urban neighbourhoods in Cali, Colombia. First, a year-long field study set out to compare a pre-existing music-training programme with a dance-training programme and a football-training programme with 9–14 year olds, to determine the extent to which each affords the development of empathic attitudes and prosocial behaviours. The music and dance programmes produced few significant changes in participants’ empathy or prosociality, and there were few significant differences between the empathy and prosociality of the participants in the two groups. Participant dropout prevented comparison with the football-training programme. Second, an interview study was used to understand the place of prosociality in the aims and work of policymakers, funders and third-sector practitioners running cultural activities for social impacts in the Cali region. The study revealed that the organisations aimed to achieve individual and social transformation by creating the conditions for transformation, evidenced as positive outcomes. Neither the measures used by the organisations themselves nor the psychosocial constructs of prosociality and empathy used by the researchers adequately evidenced some of the intended outcomes, such as enabling individuals to build a life project, practising and sustaining social inclusion and transforming communities, nor a path from individual to social transformation. Differences between the structure of cultural activities and their associated values meant that different activities were believed to lend themselves to social transformation more or less well. This highlights the need for critically reflective, co-constructed research using a fuller range of constructs that can capture the outcomes of these programmes for both individuals and groups.
Musicae Scientiae
How can we better understand the past, present and future of Social Action through Music (SATM)? This ground-breaking book examines the development of the Red de Escuelas de Música de Medellín (the Network of Music Schools of Medellín), a network of 27 schools founded in Colombia’s second city in 1996 as a response to its reputation as the most dangerous city on Earth. Inspired by El Sistema, the foundational Venezuelan music education program, the Red is nonetheless markedly different: its history is one of multiple reinventions and a continual search to improve its educational offering and better realise its social goals. Its internal reflections and attempts at transformation shed valuable light on the past, present, and future of SATM.
Journal of Popular Music Studies
Ever since Richard Taruskin pointed to Steve Reich’s use of survivor testimony in hailing the composer’s Different Trains (1988) as ‘the only adequate musical response … to the Holocaust’, composers of Western art music have embraced musicalised testimony as a form of truthful sonic witnessing to historical conflict. This persistent connection between music and testimony often is framed as documenting memories of trauma, yet this interpretation does not address the reciprocal relationships between the presumed truths of sound and its aesthetic presentation in music. Driven by Hannah Arendt’s claim that ‘factual truths are never compellingly true’, in this essay I trace the interpenetration of documentary sound and music as conveying a compelling reality or truth. This is followed by examples of testimonial witnesses in works by Philip Miller and Mary Kouyoumdjian. Finally, I reflect on the roles that testimonial music might play in imparting such compelling truths in connection with societal conflict.
Ethnomusicology Forum
Drawing on a popular music video titled ‘Beelbaa’ by a young Oromo artist, Jambo Jote, this article discusses the moments and contexts that compel young people to speak up in subtle and poetic ways. By interpreting the content of the lyrics, doing a visual analysis of the music video, and connecting both to contemporary discourses, it explores how researching social memory through music can be used as a lens to understand Ethiopian society, politics, and history. The article draws attention to alternative spaces of resistance as well as sites of intergenerational connections such as lyrics, music videos, songs, and online discussions. I argue that storytelling through music not only bridges differences on problematic and sometimes highly polarized discourses engendered by selective remembering and forgetting of national history, but that it is also indispensable for reconciliation and peaceful coexistence. Tuning into young people’s music can touch us in ways that are real, immediate, and therapeutic, making it possible for our collective wounds to heal. I further demonstrate that as musical storytelling appeals to multiple generations, it can facilitate mediation, truce, and intergenerational understanding.
Humanities
This contribution is the result of wider research, focused on projects that use artistic production to encourage the social inclusion of migrants and asylum seekers. Specifically, the article focuses on the Stregoni [“Sorcerers”] network, a project, born in Italy, which aims to involve migrant refugees and asylum seekers through music workshops. The Stregoni network created and is creating several hubs in Italy where native and migrant musicians try to involve other refugees and asylum seekers through improvisation workshops and live concerts. The aim of the project is to stimulate the personal agency of the subjects involved, encourage the creation of social bonds and networks and deconstruct the stereotyped image of refugees and asylum seekers and the orientalist portrayal of their musical productions. Through the collection of interviews with native and migrant musicians involved in the project as well as key informants, the article will reconstruct the genesis of the project, highlighting its innovative aspects, as well as weaknesses and ambivalences.
AmeriQuests: Narrative, Law and Society
Over a decade after the end of the conflict in Sri Lanka that saw mass atrocities being committed, reconciliation remains elusive. Traditional processes alone are inadequate in transforming relationships of antagonism into relationships of mutual trust and, traditional processes alone remain ineffective in achieving reconciliation among people who have experienced severe trauma and protracted marginalisation. This paper will examine the academic evidence for the potential role that arts and culture can play towards peacebuilding and reconciliation in post-conflict Sri Lanka. Looking at illustrative examples of the value of arts and culture in other post-conflict settings this paper will argue that to achieve sustainable peace adding a cultural component to peacebuilding is vital. By highlighting how responses, attitudes and behaviours can be transformed through arts and culture, this paper will explore how the introduction of strategic arts-based programmes with local content can have a significant impact on breaking barriers and stereotypes, recognise different identities and acknowledge loss and suffering thereby strengthening the community as a whole. This paper invites practitioners and policymakers in the reconciliation and dialogue space to consider the different ways in which the arts and culture can be used to effectively promote reconciliation in post-conflict Sri Lanka.
Journal of Arts and Humanities
This chapter examines how a politics of cultural diversity was implemented over a 30-year period in a Norwegian school concert program run by Concerts Norway. Departing from a historical overview, the chapter outlines the shifting agendas, values, and visions of diversity that governed this ambitious cultural effort. A central aim is to examine the ideological positions that influenced the program and the political and educational debates surrounding it. The concert program is discussed with respect to cultural diversity and anti-racism, democracy, tradition, hybridity, and the tensions between educational and artwork-based paradigms. Based on theorizations of cultural difference, the chapter shows how promoting music to children has been understood as an important part of shaping societal attitudes and laying the grounds for an anti-oppressive education. Critical issues regarding representation, influence, and power in the staging of music involving immigrant performers are raised. The chapter relates the concert programs to the political frames and ideals of the nation-state by illustrating how international cooperation effectively made the concert programs a part of Norwegian foreign policy. It points out how changing government policies had a profound impact on programs promoting cultural diversity, eventually leading to their termination as a national cultural strategy.
The Politics of Diversity in Music Education
This commentary addresses the current social turmoil in Colombia, the role of music in protest, and the actions of the music therapy community in response to the situation.
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy
Ethnomusicologists face complex and challenging professional landscapes. Graduate studies in our field do not fully equip ethnomusicologists for work outside of academia. The essays in Voices of the Field: Pathways in Public Ethnomusicology, edited by León F. García Corona and Kathleen Wiens, provide a reflection on the challenges, opportunities, and often overlooked importance of public ethnomusicology. The essays in the book, commissioned for the volume, capture years of experiences of fourteen academics who have simultaneously navigated the academic world and the world outside academia, sharing lifelong lessons often missing in ethnomusicological training. Power and organizational structures, revenue, marketing, decision-making, content management, and production are among the themes explored as an extension and re-evaluation of what constitutes the field of ethnomusicology. The authors share their personal and professional pathways, which often converge throughout their lifelong careers as public ethnomusicologists. Many of the authors share how to successfully acquire funding for a project, others show how to navigate nonacademic workplaces, and yet others share perspectives on reconciling business-like mindsets with humanistic goals. Grounded in case studies in multiple institutional and geographical locations, authors advocate for the importance and relevance of ethnomusicology in our society at large. While providing practical resources, this volume also sheds light into the blind spots of current academic ethnomusicology programs. Voices of the Field: Pathways in Public Ethnomusicology is a foundational current and retrospective approach to the study and sustainable practice of ethnomusicology.
Bicultural residents of the Hapcheon Atomic Bomb Victims Welfare Center in rural southeastern Korea who were raised in Hiroshima and survived the bomb live in a complex world of quiet—of radiation-related vocal disability, Japanese and Korean cultural values of restraint and civility, religious practice and propriety, and traumatic memory. In this article, I musically encounter a world largely devoid of music, focusing on one survivor’s style of quietude. Manipulating rhythm, pitch, and silence in speech, testimony, and craftwork, she navigates between personal aims and the expectations she faces as a witness to Korean experiences of the atomic bomb.
Ethnomusicology
Introduction: The positive impact of familiar, individualized and patient-preferred music in dementia care is acknowledged in the literature. However, traditional indigenous music practices in care contexts are less studied. This study focuses on yoik, a traditional vocal music of the indigenous Sami people of Fennoscandia. The aims of this exploratory study were to investigate key participants’ experi ences with yoik in care settings, as well as their thoughts with regard to a future study of yoik as a non-pharmacological intervention in Sami elderly and dementia care. Method: Qualitative in-person in-depth interviews with close relatives of persons in need of care, as well as healthcare professionals were analysed using qualita tive content analysis. Results: The participants shared that they had observed positive effects whenever yoik was applied in Sami elderly and dementia care, even in persons without a known yoik familiarity. No unwanted effects were reported. The participants supported the idea of a possible clinical investigation of yoik as culturally sensi tive music therapy in the future. They recommended that yoik should be imple mented on a regular basis in Sami elderly and dementia care. Conclusion: The participants agreed that yoik has potential as a nonpharmacological intervention in Sami elderly and dementia care, and that further investigation is warranted.
Nordic Journal of Music Therapy
Contemporary peacebuilding is faced with the challenge of a growing number of protracted social conflicts that are less responsive to traditional forms of peacebuilding. An alternative approach to peacebuilding, which is currently receiving increased attention by (ethno-)musicologists, is music-based peacebuilding (M&P). In order to understand the dynamics underlying peacebuilding’s adoption of this approach, the thesis investigated in how far music is an object of research and practice in peacebuilding. To answer this question, Bourdieu’s field theory was used to analyse the positioning and structure of M&P in the fields of science and peacebuilding. The analysis was supported by quantitative and qualitative data from a bibliometric analysis of the M&P literature as well as from 13 semi-structured interviews with M&P practitioners. The results showed that M&P remains unrecognised by the wider peacebuilding community as disciplinary borders prevent substantive cross-fertilisation. This dynamic is further exaggerated by a lack of mutual understanding due to divergent languages which existing frameworks are unable to encompass. In order for peacebuilding to adopt new approaches, new frameworks are therefore needed that can reconcile existing concepts of peacebuilding with divergent systems of learning and knowing.
Scholarship on prison music-making projects and programmes to date has largely overlooked the perspectives of prison music facilitators, who form an integral part of many prison music activities. The aim of the study, which was exploratory in nature, was to contribute to a better understanding overall of the relationship between music and imprisonment by focusing on the perspectives of prison music practitioners. Drawing from data collected in four Norwegian prisons through ethnographic research, data was analysed thematically with four key themes emerging: interpersonal communication and emotional connection; social responsibility; prison system and environment, and (in)difference and exclusion. The findings highlight the fact that the range of prison music activities offered in many Norwegian prisons affects music facilitators deeply in a number of ways, and support existing studies that find that prison music practices can contribute to creating a community of caring individuals both inside and outside prisons. Notably, the emergence of the (in)difference and exclusion theme demonstrates a more critical and nuanced view of prison music facilitators’ experiences as going beyond simplistic, romantic notions of music’s function in social transformation. Concerns raised for those who appear to be excluded or differentiated from musicmaking opportunities in prison – in particular foreign nationals and women – suggest that (even) in the Norwegian context, music in prisons remains a “reward” rather than a fundamental “right.” This study marks a step towards a richer and more critical understanding of prison musicking and aims to inform future research, practice, and the processes involved in the possibilities for offering music in prisons.
Musicae Scientiae
During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some American soldiers commonly listened to music in order to “motivate” themselves before action. Previous studies have shown that their most frequent choices to this effect pertained to two genres: “gangsta” rap and heavy metal. At another extreme of armed violence, Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik reported listening to a selection of tunes in the preparation of his 2011 massacre and possibly also during its perpetration. His musical choices sounded radically different from metal and rap. Yet, all of these styles of music had previously been associated with graphic violence throughout popular movies and video games. This paper asks how each type of music “worked” in motivating its listener for armed confrontation. The comparison requires going beyond the fact that mainstream media interact with common imaginaries of violence. The hypothesis here is that the differences between the terrorist’s and the soldier’s playlists reflect deeper contrasts in their engagements with the opponent. This case study of musical “motivation” leads to a broader discussion of the interplay between the agency of the listener, as opposed to the agency which he or she sometimes locates in the music itself.
Transposition