Music Downtown Eastside: Human Rights and Capability Development through Music in Urban Poverty
Author(s):
Klisala Harrison
Publication Year:
2020
Type:
book
Journal/Book Title
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Editor(s):
Pages:
Volume:
Issue:
Abstract:
Music Downtown Eastside explores how human rights are at play in the popular music practices of homeless and street-involved people who feel that music is one of the rare things that cannot be taken away of them. It draws on two decades of ethnographic research in one of Canada’s poorest urban neighborhoods, Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Klisala Harrison takes the reader into popular music jams and therapy sessions offered to the poorest of the poor in churches, community centers and health organizations. There she analyzes the capabilities music-making develops, and how human rights are respected, promoted, threatened, or violated in those musical moments. When doing so, she also offers new and detailed insights on the relationships between music and poverty, a type of social deprivation that diminishes people’s human capabilities and rights. The book contributes to the human rights literature by examining critically how human rights can be strengthened in cultural practices. Harrison’s study demonstrates that capabilities and human rights are interrelated. Developing capabilities can be a way to strengthen human rights.
Citation (Chicago Author-Date):
Harrison, Klisala. 2020. Music Downtown Eastside: Human Rights and Capability Development through Music in Urban Poverty. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press. https://academic.oup.com/book/33472/chapter/287757908.