Approaching an Epistemic Community of Applied Ethnomusicology in Australia: Intercultural Research on Australian Aboriginal Song (original) (raw)
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Ethnomusicology is a highly pragmatic discipline in Australia driven by an ethos of research engagement that seeks to deliver applied and relevant outcomes for the musicians and communities whose lives and cultures ethnomusicologists examine. In this article, I explain how this ethos has been informed by the chequered history of colonial engagements with Australia's Indigenous peoples, and how this, in turn, has shaped my own approaches to teaching collaboratively with Indigenous colleagues. I explore how, within this context, my own thinking as an ethnomusicologist was shaped by Indigenous conceptualisations of bi-culturalism such as those theorised by educator and musician Mandawuy Yunupinu, and how this influenced my collaborations with Indigenous colleagues in teaching the undergraduate course Garma Fieldwork at both the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney. I show how this contribution as an ethnomusicologist was advantageous in challenging students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to think about the nature of knowledge, and the non-textual ways of expressing it that traditionally dominate within Indigenous epistemologies. Finally, I consider what insights this experience might hold for ethnomusicology amid this broad academic context.
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education
One of the biggest debates in Australian Indigenous education today revolves around the many contested and competing ways of knowing by and about Indigenous cultures and the representation of Indigenous knowledges. Using Bakhtin's theories of dialogue and voice, my concern in this paper is to explore the polyphonic nature of power relations, performance roles and pedagogical texts in the context of teaching and learning Indigenous Australian women's music and dance. In this discussion, I will focus on my experiences as a lecturer in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland and my involvement in this educational setting with contemporary Indigenous performer Samantha Chalmers. Like a field experience, the performance classroom will be examined as a potential site for disturbing and dislocating dominant modes of representation of Indigenous women's performance through the construction, mediation and negotiation of Indigenous kn...
International Journal of Community Music, 2016
This paper reflects on the many diverse professionals who often come together around complex community music programs to exercise and voice their own values and commitment to social justice and to work together to make a change more broadly in society. Drawing on a qualitative case study of an Australian refugee and asylum seeker music program, we argue that such diverse and values oriented music facilitation teams and their surrounding networks can be productively conceptualised, developed, and evaluated as "epistemic communities". Epistemic communities consist of diverse professional and academic agents who share common values and beliefs about a social problem. They also share beliefs about things that they can do to effect change. In this case study, the common concern was social justice for refugees and asylum seekers. The common method for promoting change was music creation, participation, and dissemination. We argue that the epistemic communities conceptual framework provides one way of conceptualising the 'ripple' effects of complex community music programs and the ways that music and other professionals and self-advocates (e.g. music program participants) act as broader agents of social justice and social change.
Facing the Indigenous ‘Other’: Culturally Responsive Research and Pedagogy in Music Education
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 2016
This narrative article is based on an analysis of 61 documents, mostly articles, of which 37 were peer-reviewed, including research studies, reviews, conceptual research and narratives of practice. Review findings are reported with specific reference to the Australian and New Zealand contexts in relation to the following topic categories: the presence of indigenous music in the curriculums of selected ‘new world’ countries, teacher education in indigenous performing arts, questions of curriculum design and programming, resource selection, activity design, and school and community relationships. Certain key themes emerged across these topics: the need for a greater emphasis on more culturally nuanced music teacher education in relation to indigenous musics; the critical importance of teaching indigenous music/arts contexts; song ownership; and the need for music educators and researchers to develop a critical stance towards their subject and discipline.
Can a shared feeling of distress caused by racism and colonialism among different ethnic groups turn into group agenda? Interactions between Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders and other racially marked group of peoples from overseas living in Australia do not receive much interest. However this case study shows that these engagements occur on a daily basis. Koori Radio, an Aboriginal radio station based in Redfern (Sydney) has as its main objective to promote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music and to contest the scarce and stereotyped representations of ATSI music and peoples on the mainstream media. Simultaneously the radio plays music and provides room for other peoples who are racially marked since its foundation. In doing so, it voices their concerns and expresses common complaints and assertions. Based on ethnographic research this paper explains how a shared feeling of historical racist injustice have led to the radio station to open their space and provide airtime for other groups of peoples such as Maoris, Africans or Fijians. Further, it analyses the reasons why these peoples who are based in Sydney chose Koori Radio as a ‘shelter’.
An Indigenous Conversation: Arful Ethnography: A Pre-Colonised Collaborative Research Method?
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He has been active as an Arts Psychotherapist for twenty years and edits the international Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art Therapy (ANZJAT). He is past president and an honorary life member of ANZATA-the Australian and New Zealand Art Therapy Association. He is keenly interested in research methods and especially its applicability to indigenous stories. Tarquam has created and performed playback theater, and has published widely in the area of gender and sexuality. He is a founding member of the Asia Critical Ensemble, which examines social justice and the legacies of Paulo Freire in particular, and how colonization has impacted on multiple lives around the world. Davina B. Woods, an Indigenous Australian, is a lecturer and PhD candidate in the School of Education at Victoria University. The beginning of the 2011 academic year saw the first offering of a humanities unit written by Davina for the second year Bachelor of Education students at Victoria University. The unit, titled ReThinking Australian Studies, has as one of its main objects, to contribute to the paradigm shift regarding attitudinal and behavioural decolonization discussed in this paper.