On Not Knowing

The Department of Music of the University of Pennsylvania has an ongoing research partnership with several faith-based organizations in the Philadelphia area. At the core of this partnership, ethnomusicology professors are leading academically based community service (ABCS) classes in which students engage with local Christian and Islamic communities in order to produce ethnographic films that document the history and musical practices of these communities. The chapter discusses the authors’ experiences in ABCS work, with a focus on gospel music research projects and studies of the relationship between music, spirituality, and Islam. A second project explored the ways in which young members of an Islamic community partnership organization engaged with hip-hop culture. The process described can be best characterized by an idea of “creative uncertainty.” Drawing on growing literature in visual arts that takes the position of “not knowing” as a strategy of engagement, the authors suggest that the production of community research through principles and processes of academically based community service and engagement are best served if researchers know how little they know, and are humbly open to what they might learn, while willing to share expertise they may have to jointly create narratives of community history and belonging in dialogue with members of neighborhood faith-based organizations.