Music, Violence, and Peace-Building
Author(s):
Helen Hintjens
Rafiki Ubaldo
Publication Year:
2019
Type:
journal article
Journal/Book Title
Peace Review
Publisher
Editor(s):
Pages:
279-288
Volume:
31
Issue:
3
Abstract:
Music is not innocent. It often embodies many people’s hopes for peace in the aftermath of war, violence, and mass atrocities. And yet, already more than four decades ago, Jacques Attali warned us in Noise: a Political Economy of Music, that music may be as much connected with dissonance and violence, as it is with peace and social harmony. Attali’s study warrants a closer reading as he anticipated later critiques of a rather naïve belief in “music and peacebuilding” as somehow a natural paring or a means of social healing. Ambivalence regarding musical connections with violent and peaceful forms of social action and change, is now widely acknowledged both by practitioners and researchers, and those who combine both hats. Although human beings have played music for a very long time to promote peaceful outcomes (perhaps even before they could talk), they can use the same sounds, tones, and rhythms to stir up emotions that promote violence and send humans, and mainly men, into battle. Those of us who may advocate and research musical experiences as means of promoting well-being, common understandings, and peace, have to grapple with the “other side” of music’s power to move us—the “flip side” of music’s power to heal is its association with tendencies to incite violence and victimization.
Citation (Chicago Author-Date):
Hintjens, Helen, and Rafiki Ubaldo. 2019. “Music, Violence, and Peace-Building.” Peace Review 31 (3): 279–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/10402659.2020.1735163.