The Change of Concept: the Formation and Reflection of Applied Ethnomusicology

If the study of Jesse Fewkes and Frances Densmore in the late 19th century is taken into account, western Applied Ethnomusicology is entering its second century. After more than one hundred years of development, Applied Ethnomusicology has basically become a relatively mature research path in the West, which not only provides scholars with a new research perspective but also enriches the subject connotation of Ethnomusicology to a certain extent with its research philosophy and value pursuit. In China, Applied Ethnomusicology has attracted more and more attention. Therefore, reviewing the development history of the discipline is not only conducive to clarifying the development context of the discipline but also conducive to reflecting on the current problems and better grasping the development trend of the discipline. In the first part of this paper, the factors influencing the birth and development of applied ethnomusicology are further discussed from within and outside the discipline, respectively based on consulting relevant literature and briefly summarizing the existing discussions of scholars. The second part mainly discusses the research characteristics of Applied Ethnomusicology, such as "pragmatic orientation", "change of researcher's identity", and "emphasis on intervention and intervention". The third part of the Applied Ethnomusicology on the "intervention", "the definition of" discipline "and the edge of two issues are discussed.

Über Ziele und Ansätze der angewandten Musikethnologie als Ausdruck sozialer Verantwortung

This article functions as an introduction to the following articles of this themed issue of Die Musikforschung. It frames the idea of an applied ethnomusicology, understood as an approach guided by principles of social responsibility, and as scholarship, knowledge and understanding put to practical use. The article discusses the emergence and relevance of applied ethnomusicology in Anglophone academia as well as the German-speaking world and gives insight into different fields in which applied ethnomusicology can be practiced: from traditional areas such as musical archives and museums to activism against social justice and for the rights of indigenous people and minorities, activism for musical and cultural sustainability or health, to musicological interventions in conflict situations and, finally, ethnomusicological contributions to music pedagogy. The authors do not claim to present a final definition of applied ethnomusicology, but rather aim to demonstrate the potential of this field and to show problems emerging in the course of ethnomusicological projects of an applied character.

Miteinander musizieren

This article critically reflects a week-long music project that involved students of the music pedagogy master's programme at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and unaccompanied minor refugees of the nearby transit center. The project highlights the potential of musical activities, such as playing music, listening to and talking about music, dancing and building instruments, in the transcultural context of refugee work and points to the need for further research in this area. The evaluation of the project focuses on the benefits for the Swiss music students and the impact on their pedagogic practice and transcultural understanding, rather than the young asylum seekers. Particularly in the context of cultural education, where unequal power relations and dependencies exist, contents and representations must be carefully examined. Ethnomusicologists, through their academic training and practical activities, are sensitized to recognize and dismantle neocolonial structures and approaches. Applied ethnomusicology, which is actively involved in solving concrete problems faced by minority individuals and groups, has developed the necessary tools and is therefore particularly suitable for informing the training and challenging the pedagogic practices of prospective music teachers and educators.

The Meeting Room as Fieldwork Site

While we rightly pride ourselves on great depth and nuance in working with communities as ethnomusicologists, it is harder to claim the same qualities in how many of us regard, approach, and describe power structures. With public-facing ethnomusicology on the rise, there is both room and a need for more insightful approaches to working constructively with those in power, as various forms of structures (public authorities, NGOs, funding bodies, and even businesses) are crucial in turning projects with ambitions beyond academic impact into reality, benefiting musicians, communities, and other stakeholders. This is a critical juncture that distinguishes applied ethnomusicology; in this arena, a project without a clear strategy and support is just an idea. This chapter is based on more than forty years of negotiating spaces between dreams and ambitions of musicians and communities from myriad cultures on one hand, and on the other the ideas, forces and structures that drive those that fund, support, or otherwise enable cultural practices in different countries.

Ethical Friction

This chapter describes a music program in the Richmond, Virginia, city jail and the ethical ambiguities arising from the author’s overlapping roles as organizer and observer. The author examines the vague boundaries between applied and academic ethnomusicology, voluntarism and work, and personal and institutional ethical standards. An ethnomusicological approach to music in jails and prisons exposes ethical frictions between policies, methodologies, and codes espoused by IRB (or other ethics review) boards, ethnomusicologists, their interlocutors, and academic societies. The tension between the author’s status as a volunteer and ethnographer raises a number of questions: How is ethical knowledge differently defined? Which definitions have more authority and how is that authority established? Where are the epistemological and ethical boundaries between academic and applied ethnomusicology? How is ethnographic knowledge connected to social change? An examination of the ethnomusicology’s relationship to IRBs reveals ongoing ethical ambiguities, especially regarding research on “vulnerable populations.” The author examines the ways in which IRBs might impede the production of public knowledge that would serve the ethical demands of social justice.

Silenced Registers of Ethnomusicological Academic Labor under Neoliberalism

This chapter explores ethnomusicology as knowledge-production labor in contexts of neoliberal institutions. By discussing some important (and often silenced) aspects of knowledge production, it aims to demonstrate how the transformation of material conditions of academic labor, commodification, and precarization radically reconfigure a praxis of collaborative research. The chapter strives to demonstrate how the claims for alternative knowledge production cannot be made without addressing the structural mechanisms behind neoliberalization of academia, by addressing the following questions: How do current transformations of labor and material conditions for scholars reshape the public-oriented scholarship and the praxis of “applied ethnomusicology”? How can we discuss a more diverse, critical, and impactful future for ethnomusicology in the sense of the “self-transformation” and “self-emancipation” of the discipline as institutional practice and academic labor?

Svanibor Pettan: an Appreciation

Svanibor Pettan is that rare kind of gentleman who immediately puts his acquaintances at ease and encourages them to feel as if they'd known him for a long time. These qualities have enabled him to succeed in helping to make the world a better place through music, and in helping his colleagues in Europe and abroad to mobilize around the field of applied ethnomusicology. For Svanibor, this has meant taking ethnomusicology beyond mere scholarship – that is, beyond the accumulation of knowledge and its dissemination within the community of scholars – to the application of that ethnomusicological knowledge in service to a deliberate intervention into the ethnic groups under study, to resolve conflicts that may lead to violence and instead to promote peace among them.