Applied Ethnomusicology: Bridging Research and Action (original) (raw)
Related papers
Music and Art in Conflict Transformation: A Review
Music and Arts in Action, 2010
Since the early 1990s, there has been an increase in the use of music and the arts within a conflict transformation context. This guest editorial discusses the developments in this research and practical area. The current status of the field, and challenges it faces, are then examined within the context of this issue's theme of the arts and conflict transformation/peace building.
Music and Conflict: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 2010
This article offers a brief review of literature which demonstrates how interdisciplinary collaboration could help understand the role music plays in conflict situations. Research into the anthropology of armed conflict and into propaganda are two areas where the focus has only rarely covered music and musical activity. A number of concrete examples demonstrate how the use of music in conflict situations has implications for the justice system and policing. Recent studies into the potential of music to promote non-violent resolution of conflict are also reviewed, and in conclusion the authors note a number of other scientific disciplines-including music psychology and evolutionary musicology-that could provide further input into the issue of music and conflict research. keywords Music and propaganda, Music and confl ict, Music and war, Human rights, Music and confl ict transformation, Anthropology, Sociology of music, Music and incitement 'What passions cannot music raise and quell?' This famous, rhetorical question was posed by John Dryden in 'A Song For St Cecilia's Day' (1687). Dryden proceeded to give several examples illustrating music's effects, including the following: The trumpet's loud clangor Excites us to arms, With shrill notes of anger And mortal alarms. The double double double beat Of the thundering drum Cries, Hark, the foes come! Charge, charge, 't is too late to retreat! Dryden gives voice here to the most obvious image of music in conflict situations: 1 the trumpets and drums of a military attack, spurring the troops
Musical Processes as a Metaphor for Conflict Transformation Processes
2018
Music is part of every society, but it is not aesthetically isolated, being forever associated with a myriad of extra-musical parameters such as gesture, customs, settings and power relations. It has thus far been difficult for scholars to ascertain just what music accomplishes in the social world, since any analysis ends up being like analyses of other social activities. Despite this, the belief in the special status and power of music proliferates both within the professional musician classes, those who consume music and those with the means to organise social music programmes. Music strongly interacts with memory, identity, emotion and belief (Robertson, 2017), which goes some way to demonstrate how music is believed to have such power regardless of any evidence shown, and this is supported by recent neurological research (Patel, 2010). Conflict transformation, if it is to be successful, requires an understanding of the identity formation processes, since ideally a new shared ide...
Music and sound in times of violence, displacement and conflict
Ethnomusicology Forum
In 1980, Peru was plunged into a bloody internal war confronting the state and two armed groups: Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and the Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA). The Shining Path was a communist Maoist terrorist group whose stated aim was to replace 'bourgeois democracy' with a 'new democracy.' It claimed to fight against the elites to empower the campesinos ('Indigenous peasants'). However, they lost track of their initial aims, and ultimately committed atrocities against the campesinos themselves, soldiers, trade unionists, and other civilians. Their violence was met with escalating violence from Peru's state armed forces, and many lives were lost. The conflict spanned nearly 20 years claiming over 70,000 lives and traumatising the entire country. In the aftermath, violence was replaced by silence along with distrust, disunity and distance between the Andes and Lima, the capitala silence that only music seemed to break. Trauma bled through lyrics and notes when it was banished from political and public discourse. This violence began when I was born and continued until after I left my country at 17. My whole life in Peru was framed by conflict, violence, fraught silence, loss, racism and segregation exacerbated by the conflict, and the trauma it left me, my family, and the whole country. I cannot deny or escape this beginning in life, but I can attempt to understand and work for change. I have made it my academic purpose to study the role of music as a tool for conflict transformation, particularly during and after periods of hyper violence and social divisionmusic as an unflinching outlet when our speech is silenced by tears, fears and impotence. Yet society must also look beyond the positive potential and impact of music, to also consider its potential association with manipulation, amassing power, and stoking violence. Where words fail and the state does not help, music can play many roles, including in acknowledging trauma, promoting understanding of the roots of conflict, negotiating social guilt, facilitating public debate, contributing to reconciliation, expressing a collective sense of cultural survival, and preserving social memory (Fast and Pegley 2012; O'Connell and Castelo-Branco 2010; Ritter and Daughtry 2007; Urbain 2008). But it can also be a painful reminder of a violent past, and thus a site of tension between the competing desires to remember and to forget. How, when, and why do these roles play out? How has music been used to understand, remember and transform social conflict?
Glocal Times, 2015
This article introduces a research project 2 to be used in a larger study that aims to investigate how around-the-globe musical practices have become tied up with political movements and functioned as conflict-coping mechanisms in contexts of social and political upheaval. A series of historical as well as recent cases are explored in this preliminary study, drawing from research undertaken separately on Solentiname Islands, Nicaragua (by Mery A. Pérez 3 ), Zanzibar, Tanzania (by Shani Omari 4 ), Australia (by Lesley J. Pruitt 5 ) and from the USA (the author). This piece in particular is concerned with the different musical movement's engagement with tradition and change.
Music and Conflict Transformation
Music plays an important role in our lives. Can you imagine a movie without a soundtrack? It’s the music that punctuates the emotional content of the film. And it’s often music we turn to during both joyous and stressful times. In my personal experience, music improves listening skills, promotes cooperation and collaboration, and goes beyond spoken language to bridge differences and foster greater empathy. This paper seeks to learn: what is it about music, specifically, that seems to connect so deeply within and between people? What are the physiological effects of music? How can music be used to reveal narrative and create greater understanding?
Moving Beyond Orthodoxy: Reconsidering Notions of Music and Social Transformation
Action, Criticism and Theory in Music Education, 2018
Critical scholars have noted a tendency in the field of music education toward idealization of the socially transformative power of music and a disregard of the counterproductive or ambiguous outcomes of social music making. In this article, I discuss some of the dominant conceptualizations addressing music as a means of social transformation, and I argue that these conceptions need to be expanded to fully account for these complex processes. By applying a theoretical model derived from critical musicology dealing with music's mediation of the social on multiple levels, I propose an analytical strategy more attentive to the antagonistic and ambiguous social effects of musicking. This strategy is exemplified through an analysis of a music program in a Palestinian refugee camp, and I show how such critical analyses of musical sociality potentially result in recognition of a complex intersection of transgressive and normative functions of musical practice .
'Music as a metaphor for conflict resolution', K. J. van Zwieten, 2016.pdf
In this paper we shall follow J. F. Edelmann’s final wanderings to the West Indies. We were able to create our current survey thanks to contemporary documents indicating his presence. His music may be seen as a metaphor for conflict resolution. Facing many tribulations, Edelmann's “cognitive processing of traumas” can nowadays be indicated as an early 19th century case of “music therapy”. In: Proceedings of the 11th Annual All - Russian Research and Practical Conference with International Participation "Health - the Base of Human Potential: Problems and Ways to Solve Them", Saint Petersburg, 24th - 26th November, 2016, Vol. 11, Part 2, ISSN 2076-4618. Russian State Pedagogical University named after A.I. Herzen, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg Polytechnic University Peter the Great, 2016. S.A. Varzin, V.V. Gromova, O.E. Piskun, U. Savchenko, T.V. Semenova, O.Y. Tarasovskaya, and L.P. Churilov (Editors), pp. 852-855.