Syllabi:

Music in Peacebuilding 101

Abstracts and full bibliographic data for each item can be found in the Hub Library.

‍Course Description: This seminar course will investigate the possibility that musical activities (musicking) might contribute to peacebuilding. Beginning with examination of the common intuition or assumption that this is true, students will explore the use of music in promoting war and other forms of violence, theories and methods developed in peace studies concerned with cycles and root causes of violence, and some institutional and non-institutional means of addressing them.

Overview Readings

  • Galtung, Johan. 1969. “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research.” Journal of Peace Research 6 (3): 167–91. LINK.
  • Miall, Hugh, Oliver Ramsbotham, and Tom Woodhouse. 2005. Contemporary Conflict Resolution. London: Blackwell Publishing Professional.
  • Sandoval, Elaine. 2016. “Music in Peacebuilding: A Critical Literature Review.” Journal of Peace Education 13 (3): 200–217. LINK.

Music and Violence

  • Stock, Jonathan. 2018. “Violence.” Music and Arts in Action 6 (2): 91–104. LINK.
  • Thompson, William Forde, Andrew M. Geeves, and Kirk N. Olsen. 2019. “Who Enjoys Listening to Violent Music and Why?” Psychology of Popular Media Culture 8 (3): 218–32. LINK.
  • Kent, George. 2007. “Unpeaceful Music.” In Music and Conflict Transformation: Harmonies and Dissonances in Geopolitics, 112–22. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
  • Johnson, Bruce, and Martin Cloonan. 2008. Dark Side of the Tune: Popular Music and Violence. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
  • Snyder, Robert H. 2007. “‘Disillusioned Words Like Bullets Bark’: Incitement to Genocide, Music, and the Trial of Simon Bikindi.” Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law 35 (3): 646–74. LINK.
  • Araújo, Samuel, and Vincenzo Cambria. 2013. “Sound Praxis, Poverty, and Social Participation: Perspectives from a Collaborative Study in Rio De Janeiro.” Yearbook for Traditional Music 45: 28–42. LINK.
  • O’Connell, John Morgan, and Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco, eds. 2010. Music and Conflict. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
  • Pieslak, Jonathan R. 2009. Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Large-scale Strategies

  • Shank, Michael, and Lisa Schirch. 2008. “Strategic Arts-Based Peacebuilding.” Peace and Change 33 (2): 217–42.
  • Golden, Michael. 2016. “Musicking as Education for Social and Ecological Peace: A New Synthesis.” Journal of Peace Education 13 (3): 266–82. LINK.
  • Bergh, Arild, and John Sloboda. 2010. “Music and Art in Conflict Transformation: A Review.” Music and Arts in Action 2 (2): 2–17. LINK.

    • Strategies of Empathy

    • Wallin, Nils, Björn Merker, and Steven Brown, eds. 1999. The Origins of Music. Cambridge: MIT Press.
    • Vuoskoski, Jonna K., Eric F. Clarke, and Tia DeNora. 2017. “Music Listening Evokes Implicit Affiliation.” Psychology of Music 45 (4): 584–99. LINK.
    • Vuoskoski, Jonna, and Miu, Andrei. 2015. “The Social Side of Music Listening: Empathy and Contagion in Music-Induced Emotions.”
    • Gritten, Anthony. 2017. “Developing Trust in Others; or, How to Empathise like a Performer.” In Music and Empathy, edited by Elaine King and Caroline Waddington. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2017.: Routledge. LINK
More Publications

Music in Peacebuilding Methods

‍Course Description: This seminar course will investigate the possibility that musical activities (musicking) might contribute to peacebuilding. Readings are included that demonstrate a variety of methodological and analytical approaches currently taken to the question of music in peacebuilding. These give a sense of major questions in the field and what direction further research explorations might take.

Reflections on Practice

  • Albayrak, Umut. 2017. “Cultural Reconciliation and Music: Musical Dialogues Direction to Reconciliation between Turkish and Greek Communities in Cyprus.” ATHENS JOURNAL OF MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES 3 (4): 321–40. LINK.
  • Becker, Kelly Mancini. 2017. “The Nile Project: Music Making for Peace in the Nile Basin Region.” Music and Arts in Action 6 (1): 20. LINK.
  • Boeskov, Kim. 2020. “The Significance of Intercultural Music Activities: A Study of Norwegian Palestinian Cultural Exchange.”
  • Cohen, Mary L. 2012. “Harmony within the Walls: Perceptions of Worthiness and Competence in a Community Prison Choir.” International Journal of Music Education 30 (1): 46–56. LINK.
  • Donaghey, Jim, and Fiona Magowan. 2021. “Emotion Curves: Creativity and Methodological ‘Fit’ or ‘Commensurability.’” International Review of Qualitative Research. LINK.
  • Eck, Fabienne van. 2014. “The Role of the Musician Working with Traumatized People in a War-Affected Area: Let the Music Happen.” Journal of Applied Arts & Health 4 (3): 301–11. LINK.
  • Gulbay, Salih. 2021. “Exploring the Use of Hip Hop-Based Music Therapy to Address Trauma in Asylum Seeker and Unaccompanied Minor Migrant Youth.” Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy 21 (3): 1–16. LINK.
  • Harrison, Klisala. 2020. “Value Alignment in Applied and Community-Based Music Research.” Musiikki 1 (2): 71–87.
  • Howell, Gillian, Lesley Pruitt, and Laura Hassler. 2019. “Making Music in Divided Cities: Transforming the Ethnoscape.” International Journal of Community Music 12 (3): 331–48. LINK.
  • Korum, Solveig, and Gillian Howell. 2021. “Competing Economies of Worth in a Multiagency Music and Reconciliation Partnership: The Sri Lanka Norway Music Cooperation (2009-2018).” International Journal of Cultural Policy 27 (6): 830–44. LINK.
  • Moore, Jane. 2013. “They Throw Spears: Reconciliation through Music.” The International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives 12 (1): 146–60.
  • Stephenson, Max, and Laura Zanotti. 2017. “Exploring the Intersection of Theory and Practice of Arts for Peacebuilding.” Global Society 31 (3): 336–52. LINK.
  • Thomas, Zareen. 2019. “Deploying Youth: Colombian Peacebuilding in Performance.” The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 24 (2): 478–97. LINK.
  • Vougioukalou, Sofia, Rosie Dow, Laura Bradshaw, and Tracy Pallant. 2019. “Wellbeing and Integration through Community Music: The Role of Improvisation in a Music Group of Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Local Community Members.” Contemporary Music Review 38 (5): 533–48. LINK.
  • Ware, Vicki-Ann, Joanne Lauterjung, and Shannon Harmer McSolvin. 2021. “Arts-Based Adult Learning in Peacebuilding: A Potentially Significant Emerging Area for Development Practitioners?” The European Journal of Development Research, May. LINK.

Ethnographic Case Studies

  • Abebe, Tatek. 2021. “Storytelling through Popular Music: Social Memory, Reconciliation, and Intergenerational Healing in Oromia/Ethiopia.” Humanities 10 (2): 70. LINK.
  • Dave, Nomi. 2019. The Revolution’s Echoes: Music, Politics, and Pleasure in Guinea. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. LINK.
  • Malcomson, Hettie. 2021. “Making Subjects Grievable: Narco Rap, Moral Ambivalence and Ethical Sense Making.” Ethnomusicology Forum 30 (2): 205–25. LINK.
  • Tan, Sooi Beng. 2018. “Community Musical Theatre and Interethnic Peace-Building in Malaysia.” In The Oxford Handbook of Community Music, edited by Brydie-Leigh Bartleet and Lee Higgins. Oxford: Oxford University Press. LINK.
  • Witherow, Jacqueline. 2015. “Parading Protestantisms and the Flute Bands of Postconflict Northern Ireland.” In The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities, edited by Jonathan Dueck and Suzel Ana Reily. Oxford: Oxford University Press. LINK.

Experimental Findings

  • Cespedes-Guevara, Julian, and Nicola Dibben. 2021. “Promoting Prosociality in Colombia: Is Music More Effective than Other Cultural Interventions?” Musicae Scientiae 25 (3): 332–57. LINK.
  • Eerola, Tuomas, Jonna K. Vuoskoski, and Hannu Kautiainen. 2016. “Being Moved by Unfamiliar Sad Music Is Associated with High Empathy.” Frontiers in Psychology 7 (September). LINK.
  • Kuchenbrandt, Dieta, Rolf van Dick, Miriam Koschate, Johannes Ullrich, and Manfred Bornewasser. 2014. “More than Music! A Longitudinal Test of German–Polish Music Encounters.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 40 (May): 167–74. LINK.
  • Neto, Félix, Maria da Conceição Pinto, and Etienne Mullet. 2019. “Can Music Reduce National Prejudice? A Test of a Cross-Cultural Musical Education Programme.” Psychology of Music 47 (5): 747–56. LINK.
  • Rabinowitch, Tal-Chen, Ian Cross, and Pamela Burnard. 2013. “Long-Term Musical Group Interaction Has a Positive Influence on Empathy in Children.” Psychology of Music 41 (4): 484–98. LINK.
  • Ruth, Nicolas, and Holger Schramm. 2021. “Effects of Prosocial Lyrics and Musical Production Elements on Emotions, Thoughts and Behavior.” Psychology of Music 49 (4): 759–76. LINK.
  • Scrantom, Katharine, and Katrina McLaughlin. 2019. “Heroes on the Hill: A Qualitative Study of the Psychosocial Benefits of an Intercultural Arts Programme for Youth in Northern Ireland.” Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 29 (4): 297–310. LINK.
  • Sousa, Maria Do Rosário, Félix Neto, and Etienne Mullet. 2005. “Can Music Change Ethnic Attitudes among Children?” Psychology of Music 33 (3): 304–16. LINK.
  • Ziv, Naomi. 2019. “Pro‐peace or Anti‐war: The Effect of Emotions Primed by Protest Songs on Emotions toward In‐group and Out‐group in Conflict.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 49 (12): 778–95. LINK.
  • Zupančič, Rok, Faris Kočan, and Janja Vuga. 2021. “Ethnic Distancing through Aesthetics in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Appraising the Limits of Art as a Peacebuilding Tool with a Socio-Psychological Experiment.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 21 (1): 101–23. LINK.

Theorizing Music in Peacebuilding

  • Baker, Catherine. 2019. “Veteran Masculinities and Audiovisual Popular Music in Post-Conflict Croatia: A Feminist Aesthetic Approach to the Contested Everyday Peace.” Peacebuilding 7 (2): 226–42. LINK.
  • Belkind, Nili. 2021. “Between the Local, the Global, and the Aid Economy in Palestine: The Edward Said National Conservatory of Music (ESNCM) at the Christmas Concert for Life and Peace in Bethlehem.” Arts & International Affairs 5 (2). LINK.
  • Dave, N. 2015. “Music and the Myth of Universality: Sounding Human Rights and Capabilities.” Journal of Human Rights Practice 7 (1): 1–17. LINK.
  • Friedson, Steven. 2019. “The Music Box: Songs of Futility in a Time of Torture.” Ethnomusicology 63 (2): 222–46. LINK.
  • Howell, Gillian. 2021. “Harmonious Relations: A Framework for Studying Varieties of Peace in Music-Based Peacebuilding.” Journal of Peacebuilding & Development 16 (1): 85–101. LINK.
  • Marsh, Kathryn. 2019. “Music as Dialogic Space in the Promotion of Peace, Empathy and Social Inclusion.” International Journal of Community Music 12 (3): 301–16. LINK.
  • McCoy, Jason. 2019. “Memory, Trauma, and the Politics of Repatriating Bikindi’s Music in the Aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide.” In The Oxford Handbook of Musical Repatriation, edited by Frank Gunderson, Robert C. Lancefield, and Woods, Brett, 419–35. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Nicholls, Tracey. 2014. “Music and Social Justice.” In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. LINK/.
  • O’Connell, John Morgan. 2021. “Conflict after Conflict: Music in the Memorialisation of the Gallipoli Campaign.” Ethnomusicology Forum 30 (2): 283–301. LINK.
  • Phillips-Hutton, Ariana. 2021. “Sonic Witnesses: Music, Testimony, and Truth.” Ethnomusicology Forum 30 (2): 266–82. LINK.
  • Robertson, Craig. 2019. “Belief in the Power of Music and Resilient Identities: Navigating Shared Fictions.” Music and Arts in Action 7 (1): 113–26. LINK.
  • Sykes, Jim. 2018. “Ontologies of Acoustic Endurance: Rethinking Wartime Sound and Listening.” Sound Studies 4 (1): 35–60. LINK.
  • Teitelbaum, Benjamin R. 2019. “Collaborating with the Radical Right: Scholar-Informant Solidarity and the Case for an Immoral Anthropology.” Current Anthropology 60 (3): 414–35. LINK.
  • Urbain, Olivier. 2021. “Business and Music in Peacebuilding Activities*.” In Music, Business and Peacebuilding, by Constance Cook Glen and Timothy L. Fort, 1st ed., 72–87. London: Routledge. LINK.
  • Wood, Abigail. 2021. “‘I Thought It Was a Song but It Turned out to Be a Siren’: Civilian Listening during Wartime in Israel.” Ethnomusicology Forum 30 (2): 185–204. LINK.
More Publications

Olivier Urbain's Music in Peacebuilding Course

This syllabus was prepared by Dr. Olivier Urbain for the course "Music in Peacebuilding" ("MinPB") taught at Soka University (Japan), fall of 2023.

General Description: In this course we will examine various aspects of the potential application of music in peacebuilding activities (in short: MinPB). We will first explore what music means to you, how you express yourself musically in daily life, and what it means for your place in the world and your contributions to it. Next we will start conceptualizing the links between music and peacebuilding based on various peace theories.
‍
There are vast numbers of organizations actively promoting social justice and various issues in peacebuilding through music, and we will learn how to find and evaluate the most important ones. Through this process students will also define their research topic for this course. The next step is to find the academic articles most relevant to your chosen topic in the MinPB literature.

Some basic theories will help students avoid conceptual pitfalls (regarding some mysterious power that music might have for instance) and allow them to catch up with current developments, such as: the ambivalence of music, musicking as action, controversies regarding the universality of music, how to make the extraordinary ordinary through repetition, and the inescapable interference of power relations in musical activities. At the micro level, we will learn the basics of the neuroscience of music, and at the macro level, recent developments in decolonial thinking and practice.

As humanity is looking for alternatives to rational and verbal means of communication in order to find solutions to the interconnected crises affecting the biosphere, including Homo sapiens and all other-than-human species, the field of MinPB offers a way to explore the potential application of music in peacebuilding activities through multidisciplinary research and practice.

Course Objective: Acquire theoretical foundations that allow you to investigate the potential application of music in peacebuilding activities.

Course Readings

  • Galtung, J. (2015). Chapter 4: “Peace, Music and the Arts: In Search of Interconnections” in Music and Conflict Transformation: Harmonies and Dissonances in Geopolitics. I.B. Tauris.
  • Lederach, J.P. (2016). “Foreword” in Music and Peace Education: Special issue for the Journal of Peace Education.
  • Shorter, W. (2015). “Foreword to the Paperback Edition” in Music and Conflict Transformation: Harmonies and Dissonances in Geopolitics. I.B. Tauris.
  • Levitin, D. (2006). This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. Penguin.
  • Snyder, R. (2007). “Disillusioned Words Like Bullets Bark: Incitement to Genocide, Music, and the Trial of Simon Bikindi” in Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law.
  • Baker, G. (2014). El Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth. Oxford University Press.
  • Howell, G. (2022). “Peaces of music: understanding the varieties of peace that musicmaking can foster” in Peacebuilding. Routledge.
  • Golden, M.; Robertson, C.; Sandoval, E.; Urbain, O., Editors. (2018 & 2020). All articles in "Keywords for Music in Peacebuilding": Two special issues for the journal Music and Arts in Action (Volume 6, Number 2, 2018 and Volume 7, Number 3, 2020).
More Publications

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Miscellaneous Reading Lists

The following are reading lists related to Music in Peacebuilding produced by various organizations. Enjoy browsing! Please Add a Syllabus if you have a reading list you'd like to have included.

Academic literature on the topic 'Radicalism and music'

Grafiati

"Consult the lists of relevant articles, books, theses, conference reports, and other scholarly sources on the topic 'Radicalism and music.'"

2022

Ethnomusicology Reading Group's Reading List on Music and Violence

Ethnomusicology Reading Group

The Ethnomusicology Reading Group is a "virtual community of postgraduate and early career researchers" that have weekly discussions on readings in ethnomusicology. From October to December 2022, they focused on the topic of Music and Violence, producing a helpful reading list (list can be found at the below link under the heading "October-December 2022").

2022

Music and Violence SIG Open Bibliography

SEM Music and Violence SIG

Produced by the Music and Violence Special Interest Group of the Society for Ethnomusicology.

2022

Bibliography: The Field of Applied Ethnomusicology

SEM Applied Ethnomusicology SIG

"In response to requests over the years, the co-chairs [of the Applied Ethnomusicology SIG at the Society for Ethnomusicology] have prepared a brief bibliography of source materials in which the chief subject is theorizing Applied Ethnomusicology as a field of inquiry and practice rather than the description of a particular project in Applied Ethnomusicology. It's listed here in chronological order by year of publication."

Music Therapy Reading List

Nordoff & Robbins

Masters of Music Therapy (MMT) pre-application reading list: "what [students can] read to learn about the Nordoff and Robbins approach to music therapy and prepare for their audition and interview."

Syllabi:

101

Methods

Urbain's 
Music in Peacebuilding

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Misc. Reading Lists

Music in Peacebuilding 101

Abstracts and full bibliographic data for each item can be found in the Hub Library.

‍Course Description: This seminar course will investigate the possibility that musical activities (musicking) might contribute to peacebuilding. Beginning with examination of the common intuition or assumption that this is true, students will explore the use of music in promoting war and other forms of violence, theories and methods developed in peace studies concerned with cycles and root causes of violence, and some institutional and non-institutional means of addressing them.

Overview Readings

  • Galtung, Johan. 1969. “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research.” Journal of Peace Research 6 (3): 167–91. LINK.
  • Miall, Hugh, Oliver Ramsbotham, and Tom Woodhouse. 2005. Contemporary Conflict Resolution. London: Blackwell Publishing Professional.
  • Sandoval, Elaine. 2016. “Music in Peacebuilding: A Critical Literature Review.” Journal of Peace Education 13 (3): 200–217. LINK.

Music and Violence

  • Stock, Jonathan. 2018. “Violence.” Music and Arts in Action 6 (2): 91–104. LINK.
  • Thompson, William Forde, Andrew M. Geeves, and Kirk N. Olsen. 2019. “Who Enjoys Listening to Violent Music and Why?” Psychology of Popular Media Culture 8 (3): 218–32. LINK.
  • Kent, George. 2007. “Unpeaceful Music.” In Music and Conflict Transformation: Harmonies and Dissonances in Geopolitics, 112–22. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
  • Johnson, Bruce, and Martin Cloonan. 2008. Dark Side of the Tune: Popular Music and Violence. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
  • Snyder, Robert H. 2007. “‘Disillusioned Words Like Bullets Bark’: Incitement to Genocide, Music, and the Trial of Simon Bikindi.” Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law 35 (3): 646–74. LINK.
  • Araújo, Samuel, and Vincenzo Cambria. 2013. “Sound Praxis, Poverty, and Social Participation: Perspectives from a Collaborative Study in Rio De Janeiro.” Yearbook for Traditional Music 45: 28–42. LINK.
  • O’Connell, John Morgan, and Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco, eds. 2010. Music and Conflict. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
  • Pieslak, Jonathan R. 2009. Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Large-scale Strategies

  • Shank, Michael, and Lisa Schirch. 2008. “Strategic Arts-Based Peacebuilding.” Peace and Change 33 (2): 217–42.
  • Golden, Michael. 2016. “Musicking as Education for Social and Ecological Peace: A New Synthesis.” Journal of Peace Education 13 (3): 266–82. LINK.
  • Bergh, Arild, and John Sloboda. 2010. “Music and Art in Conflict Transformation: A Review.” Music and Arts in Action 2 (2): 2–17. LINK.

    • Strategies of Empathy

    • Wallin, Nils, Björn Merker, and Steven Brown, eds. 1999. The Origins of Music. Cambridge: MIT Press.
    • Vuoskoski, Jonna K., Eric F. Clarke, and Tia DeNora. 2017. “Music Listening Evokes Implicit Affiliation.” Psychology of Music 45 (4): 584–99. LINK.
    • Vuoskoski, Jonna, and Miu, Andrei. 2015. “The Social Side of Music Listening: Empathy and Contagion in Music-Induced Emotions.”
    • Gritten, Anthony. 2017. “Developing Trust in Others; or, How to Empathise like a Performer.” In Music and Empathy, edited by Elaine King and Caroline Waddington. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2017.: Routledge. LINK
More Publications

Music in Peacebuilding Methods

‍Course Description: This seminar course will investigate the possibility that musical activities (musicking) might contribute to peacebuilding. Readings are included that demonstrate a variety of methodological and analytical approaches currently taken to the question of music in peacebuilding. These give a sense of major questions in the field and what direction further research explorations might take.

Reflections on Practice

  • Albayrak, Umut. 2017. “Cultural Reconciliation and Music: Musical Dialogues Direction to Reconciliation between Turkish and Greek Communities in Cyprus.” ATHENS JOURNAL OF MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES 3 (4): 321–40. LINK.
  • Becker, Kelly Mancini. 2017. “The Nile Project: Music Making for Peace in the Nile Basin Region.” Music and Arts in Action 6 (1): 20. LINK.
  • Boeskov, Kim. 2020. “The Significance of Intercultural Music Activities: A Study of Norwegian Palestinian Cultural Exchange.”
  • Cohen, Mary L. 2012. “Harmony within the Walls: Perceptions of Worthiness and Competence in a Community Prison Choir.” International Journal of Music Education 30 (1): 46–56. LINK.
  • Donaghey, Jim, and Fiona Magowan. 2021. “Emotion Curves: Creativity and Methodological ‘Fit’ or ‘Commensurability.’” International Review of Qualitative Research. LINK.
  • Eck, Fabienne van. 2014. “The Role of the Musician Working with Traumatized People in a War-Affected Area: Let the Music Happen.” Journal of Applied Arts & Health 4 (3): 301–11. LINK.
  • Gulbay, Salih. 2021. “Exploring the Use of Hip Hop-Based Music Therapy to Address Trauma in Asylum Seeker and Unaccompanied Minor Migrant Youth.” Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy 21 (3): 1–16. LINK.
  • Harrison, Klisala. 2020. “Value Alignment in Applied and Community-Based Music Research.” Musiikki 1 (2): 71–87.
  • Howell, Gillian, Lesley Pruitt, and Laura Hassler. 2019. “Making Music in Divided Cities: Transforming the Ethnoscape.” International Journal of Community Music 12 (3): 331–48. LINK.
  • Korum, Solveig, and Gillian Howell. 2021. “Competing Economies of Worth in a Multiagency Music and Reconciliation Partnership: The Sri Lanka Norway Music Cooperation (2009-2018).” International Journal of Cultural Policy 27 (6): 830–44. LINK.
  • Moore, Jane. 2013. “They Throw Spears: Reconciliation through Music.” The International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives 12 (1): 146–60.
  • Stephenson, Max, and Laura Zanotti. 2017. “Exploring the Intersection of Theory and Practice of Arts for Peacebuilding.” Global Society 31 (3): 336–52. LINK.
  • Thomas, Zareen. 2019. “Deploying Youth: Colombian Peacebuilding in Performance.” The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 24 (2): 478–97. LINK.
  • Vougioukalou, Sofia, Rosie Dow, Laura Bradshaw, and Tracy Pallant. 2019. “Wellbeing and Integration through Community Music: The Role of Improvisation in a Music Group of Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Local Community Members.” Contemporary Music Review 38 (5): 533–48. LINK.
  • Ware, Vicki-Ann, Joanne Lauterjung, and Shannon Harmer McSolvin. 2021. “Arts-Based Adult Learning in Peacebuilding: A Potentially Significant Emerging Area for Development Practitioners?” The European Journal of Development Research, May. LINK.

Ethnographic Case Studies

  • Abebe, Tatek. 2021. “Storytelling through Popular Music: Social Memory, Reconciliation, and Intergenerational Healing in Oromia/Ethiopia.” Humanities 10 (2): 70. LINK.
  • Dave, Nomi. 2019. The Revolution’s Echoes: Music, Politics, and Pleasure in Guinea. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. LINK.
  • Malcomson, Hettie. 2021. “Making Subjects Grievable: Narco Rap, Moral Ambivalence and Ethical Sense Making.” Ethnomusicology Forum 30 (2): 205–25. LINK.
  • Tan, Sooi Beng. 2018. “Community Musical Theatre and Interethnic Peace-Building in Malaysia.” In The Oxford Handbook of Community Music, edited by Brydie-Leigh Bartleet and Lee Higgins. Oxford: Oxford University Press. LINK.
  • Witherow, Jacqueline. 2015. “Parading Protestantisms and the Flute Bands of Postconflict Northern Ireland.” In The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities, edited by Jonathan Dueck and Suzel Ana Reily. Oxford: Oxford University Press. LINK.

Experimental Findings

  • Cespedes-Guevara, Julian, and Nicola Dibben. 2021. “Promoting Prosociality in Colombia: Is Music More Effective than Other Cultural Interventions?” Musicae Scientiae 25 (3): 332–57. LINK.
  • Eerola, Tuomas, Jonna K. Vuoskoski, and Hannu Kautiainen. 2016. “Being Moved by Unfamiliar Sad Music Is Associated with High Empathy.” Frontiers in Psychology 7 (September). LINK.
  • Kuchenbrandt, Dieta, Rolf van Dick, Miriam Koschate, Johannes Ullrich, and Manfred Bornewasser. 2014. “More than Music! A Longitudinal Test of German–Polish Music Encounters.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 40 (May): 167–74. LINK.
  • Neto, Félix, Maria da Conceição Pinto, and Etienne Mullet. 2019. “Can Music Reduce National Prejudice? A Test of a Cross-Cultural Musical Education Programme.” Psychology of Music 47 (5): 747–56. LINK.
  • Rabinowitch, Tal-Chen, Ian Cross, and Pamela Burnard. 2013. “Long-Term Musical Group Interaction Has a Positive Influence on Empathy in Children.” Psychology of Music 41 (4): 484–98. LINK.
  • Ruth, Nicolas, and Holger Schramm. 2021. “Effects of Prosocial Lyrics and Musical Production Elements on Emotions, Thoughts and Behavior.” Psychology of Music 49 (4): 759–76. LINK.
  • Scrantom, Katharine, and Katrina McLaughlin. 2019. “Heroes on the Hill: A Qualitative Study of the Psychosocial Benefits of an Intercultural Arts Programme for Youth in Northern Ireland.” Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 29 (4): 297–310. LINK.
  • Sousa, Maria Do Rosário, Félix Neto, and Etienne Mullet. 2005. “Can Music Change Ethnic Attitudes among Children?” Psychology of Music 33 (3): 304–16. LINK.
  • Ziv, Naomi. 2019. “Pro‐peace or Anti‐war: The Effect of Emotions Primed by Protest Songs on Emotions toward In‐group and Out‐group in Conflict.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 49 (12): 778–95. LINK.
  • Zupančič, Rok, Faris Kočan, and Janja Vuga. 2021. “Ethnic Distancing through Aesthetics in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Appraising the Limits of Art as a Peacebuilding Tool with a Socio-Psychological Experiment.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 21 (1): 101–23. LINK.

Theorizing Music in Peacebuilding

  • Baker, Catherine. 2019. “Veteran Masculinities and Audiovisual Popular Music in Post-Conflict Croatia: A Feminist Aesthetic Approach to the Contested Everyday Peace.” Peacebuilding 7 (2): 226–42. LINK.
  • Belkind, Nili. 2021. “Between the Local, the Global, and the Aid Economy in Palestine: The Edward Said National Conservatory of Music (ESNCM) at the Christmas Concert for Life and Peace in Bethlehem.” Arts & International Affairs 5 (2). LINK.
  • Dave, N. 2015. “Music and the Myth of Universality: Sounding Human Rights and Capabilities.” Journal of Human Rights Practice 7 (1): 1–17. LINK.
  • Friedson, Steven. 2019. “The Music Box: Songs of Futility in a Time of Torture.” Ethnomusicology 63 (2): 222–46. LINK.
  • Howell, Gillian. 2021. “Harmonious Relations: A Framework for Studying Varieties of Peace in Music-Based Peacebuilding.” Journal of Peacebuilding & Development 16 (1): 85–101. LINK.
  • Marsh, Kathryn. 2019. “Music as Dialogic Space in the Promotion of Peace, Empathy and Social Inclusion.” International Journal of Community Music 12 (3): 301–16. LINK.
  • McCoy, Jason. 2019. “Memory, Trauma, and the Politics of Repatriating Bikindi’s Music in the Aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide.” In The Oxford Handbook of Musical Repatriation, edited by Frank Gunderson, Robert C. Lancefield, and Woods, Brett, 419–35. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Nicholls, Tracey. 2014. “Music and Social Justice.” In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. LINK/.
  • O’Connell, John Morgan. 2021. “Conflict after Conflict: Music in the Memorialisation of the Gallipoli Campaign.” Ethnomusicology Forum 30 (2): 283–301. LINK.
  • Phillips-Hutton, Ariana. 2021. “Sonic Witnesses: Music, Testimony, and Truth.” Ethnomusicology Forum 30 (2): 266–82. LINK.
  • Robertson, Craig. 2019. “Belief in the Power of Music and Resilient Identities: Navigating Shared Fictions.” Music and Arts in Action 7 (1): 113–26. LINK.
  • Sykes, Jim. 2018. “Ontologies of Acoustic Endurance: Rethinking Wartime Sound and Listening.” Sound Studies 4 (1): 35–60. LINK.
  • Teitelbaum, Benjamin R. 2019. “Collaborating with the Radical Right: Scholar-Informant Solidarity and the Case for an Immoral Anthropology.” Current Anthropology 60 (3): 414–35. LINK.
  • Urbain, Olivier. 2021. “Business and Music in Peacebuilding Activities*.” In Music, Business and Peacebuilding, by Constance Cook Glen and Timothy L. Fort, 1st ed., 72–87. London: Routledge. LINK.
  • Wood, Abigail. 2021. “‘I Thought It Was a Song but It Turned out to Be a Siren’: Civilian Listening during Wartime in Israel.” Ethnomusicology Forum 30 (2): 185–204. LINK.
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Olivier Urbain's Music in Peacebuilding Course

This syllabus was prepared by Dr. Olivier Urbain for the course "Music in Peacebuilding" ("MinPB") taught at Soka University (Japan), fall of 2023.

General Description: In this course we will examine various aspects of the potential application of music in peacebuilding activities (in short: MinPB). We will first explore what music means to you, how you express yourself musically in daily life, and what it means for your place in the world and your contributions to it. Next we will start conceptualizing the links between music and peacebuilding based on various peace theories.
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There are vast numbers of organizations actively promoting social justice and various issues in peacebuilding through music, and we will learn how to find and evaluate the most important ones. Through this process students will also define their research topic for this course. The next step is to find the academic articles most relevant to your chosen topic in the MinPB literature.

Some basic theories will help students avoid conceptual pitfalls (regarding some mysterious power that music might have for instance) and allow them to catch up with current developments: the ambivalence of music, musicking as action, controversies regarding the universality of music, how to make the extraordinary ordinary through repetition, the inescapable interference of power relations in musical activities) At the micro level, we will learn the basics of the neuroscience of music, and at the macro level, recent developments in decolonial thinking and practice.

As humanity is looking for alternatives to rational and verbal means of communication in order to find solutions to the interconnected crises affecting the biosphere, including Homo sapiens and all other-than-human species, the field of MinPB offers a way to explore the potential application of music in peacebuilding activities through multidisciplinary research and practice.

Course Objective: Acquire theoretical foundations that allow you to investigate the potential application of music in peacebuilding activities.

Course Readings

  • Galtung, J. (2015). Chapter 4: “Peace, Music and the Arts: In Search of Interconnections” in Music and Conflict Transformation: Harmonies and Dissonances in Geopolitics. I.B. Tauris.
  • Lederach, J.P. (2016). “Foreword” in Music and Peace Education: Special issue for the Journal of Peace Education.
  • Shorter, W. (2015). “Foreword to the Paperback Edition” in Music and Conflict Transformation: Harmonies and Dissonances in Geopolitics. I.B. Tauris.
  • Levitin, D. (2006). This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. Penguin.
  • Snyder, R. (2007). “Disillusioned Words Like Bullets Bark: Incitement to Genocide, Music, and the Trial of Simon Bikindi” in Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law.
  • Baker, G. (2014). El Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth. Oxford University Press.
  • Howell, G. (2022). “Peaces of music: understanding the varieties of peace that musicmaking can foster” in Peacebuilding. Routledge.
  • Golden, M.; Robertson, C.; Sandoval, E.; Urbain, O., Editors. (2018 & 2020). All articles in "Keywords for Music in Peacebuilding": Two special issues for the journal Music and Arts in Action (Volume 6, Number 2, 2018 and Volume 7, Number 3, 2020).
More Publications

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Miscellaneous Reading Lists

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Music and Violence SIG Open Bibliography

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Ethnomusicology Reading Group's Reading List on Music and Violence

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The Ethnomusicology Reading Group is a "virtual community of postgraduate and early career researchers" that have weekly discussions on readings in ethnomusicology. From October to December 2022, they focused on the topic of Music and Violence, producing a helpful reading list (list can be found at the below link under the heading "October-December 2022").

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Bibliography: The Field of Applied Ethnomusicology

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