Performing Transitional Justice

This chapter invites critical scrutiny of the role of performance ethnography in development praxis, focusing specifically on the place of ethnomusicology in current discourses about alternative frameworks for transitional justice in post-conflict and fragile states. The paper responds to the increasing appeal in transitional justice literature for legal pluralism and reflects on the challenges and opportunities that traditional justice strategies pose for many of the fundamental assumptions that currently underlie post-conflict rule-of-law work. Taking direction from Brown et al. (2011) and Mignolo (2013), who call for imaginative “delinking” from current epistemic hegemonies in seeking solutions to pressing societal problems, the chapter argues for greater consideration of culture in responding to the multidimensional legacies of protracted conflict (Rush & Simić 2014). Drawing on research on Dinka ox-songs in South Sudan—a country that emerged from half a century of civil war with Sudan, but remains profoundly destabilized by internecine violence—the paper argues that in their capacity as public hearings, ox-songs offer locally embedded judicial instruments or “justice rituals” (Rossner 2013) of narration, listening, and understanding, opening discursive spaces for the expression of multiple public positions and forms of agency. While songs recount individual, clan, or community memories within the context of culturally legitimate expressive spaces, they equally reveal potentially incompatible rejoinders to social justice, forgiveness, and inclusivity, thus supporting new pathways for hybrid or plural frameworks for truth-telling, justice, and reparative outcomes.

Zafè Fatra (The Affair of Trash) and the Affair of Scholarly Engagement

This chapter examines the challenges and ethics of an applied ethnomusicologist working in Haiti. She scrutinizes whether the impact of ethnomusicologists and scholars, especially when dealing with nonmusical issues such as trash, can be anything more than superficial. Intimately tied to poverty, health insecurity, political uncertainty, and structural violence, trash is one of the most visible and hazardous challenges in Port-au- Prince today. Pedestrians are frequently forced to traverse piles of garbage on their daily routes, and many Haitian citizens speak of politik fatra, a “politics of trash,” that governs civic behavior to a surprising extent. Notably, the mounting trash problem has given rise to a distinct and growing musical discourse on garbage. This repertoire might be tied to mizik angaje—literally, “engaged music,” a genre-crossing expressive form featuring politically and socially engaged lyrics that has been central to the nation’s historical record from the colonial era to the present. Yet youth today are reframing this revered tradition of “throwing” pointed verbal criticisms through music. Namely, several groups of young musicians routinely use their songs to voice concerns about environmental degradation and inappropriate dumping practices, but these musicians’ engagement with trash does not end with their lyrics. Certain artists are physically trying to combat the problem and to empower their local communities toward concrete action. The chapter looks at what happens when Haitian youth use music to clean up Haiti’s streets, before reflecting more deeply on what happens when ethnomusicologists use research methodologies to encourage the process of community engagement.

Collaborative Ethnography

In the past few decades, new forms of collaborative ethnography have continued to expand and grow. Though collaborative ethnography arguably has a long tradition in ethnographic fieldwork, developments surrounding, among other things, the explicit co-conceptualization and co-theorization of collaborative inquiry; the diverse and dynamic co-commitments of practice (be they moral, ethical, political, or otherwise); and the joint productions of ethnographic forms (be they texts, exhibits, actions, etc.) have yielded new opportunities for collaborative research and action. With this in mind, this chapter explores how recent forms of collaborative ethnography are helping to chart more critical and complex understandings of both collaboration and collaborative research in field-based disciplines such as anthropology, folklore, and ethnomusicology.

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.

Witnessing

From the Michael Brown killing in Ferguson, Missouri, and beyond, spectacular moments of witnessing have dominated the US news since August 2014. Whether focused on the ordinary or the extraordinary, I argue that intentionally deploying the intent to witness is profoundly different from the kind of sustained ethnographic work marking ethnomusicology as a discipline. Yet it also draws on the same skills, from a willingness to attend deeply to the moment, to inviting a shift in subjectivity. This chapter offers a genealogy of witnessing and then focuses on acts of auditory attention that radically disrupt the ethnographic impulse toward collecting, taking, owning, and having, and thus offers a way to decolonize ethnography and ethnomusicology.

The International Council for Traditional Music and Society for Ethnomusicology

The notion of transforming the discipline, as suggested by the books’ title, is directly linked to the first joint scholarly meeting of the International Council for Traditional Music and Society for Ethnomusicology that took place as late as 2015, more than six decades after their foundations. This chapter offers historical, comparative, and personal insights into the two major scholarly associations in the field, creating a basis for an informed comprehension of ethnomusicological praxis discussed in other chapters. Distinctive and, in the beginning, hardly compatible intellectual histories of ICTM and SEM offer a key to understanding different attitudes toward activism and community engagement in both spatial and temporal terms. The chapter pays attention to the increasing interconnectedness, as well, and to the importance of shared members for cross-fertilization of ideas.

Ethnomusicological Praxis

The introductory chapter to each of the two volumes in Transforming Ethnomusicology offers a critical discussion of a range of socially engaged approaches as well as their deep historical roots that we consider foundational and fundamental to the ethnomusicological endeavor. These approaches affiliate variably with such intellectual traditions as Marxism, feminism and anti-racism, Post-colonialism and Indigenous Studies, Participatory Action Research, analyses of heritage practices and sustainability challenges, studies of intellectual property regimes and ecologies, and other work in ethnomusicology and cognate disciplines in the social sciences. Our aim is to deepen the conversation about how intellectual history has informed our discipline and to probe the premises, activities, and assumptions of scholars past and present who strive to respond to the concerns of the communities with whom they work.

Engaged Activist Research

Mainstream academia assumes a dichotomy between active political research for problem solving and theoretically driven research on the problem. In many music academies, the researcher is trained to be a detached neutral observer in the field who is expected to be objective in the analysis of the data collected. However, socio-cultural problems such as poverty, conflict, ethnic and class inequalities, or rights to cultural representation, which affect musical cultures, do not exist in a political void. If our goal is for the research to have a practical and social impact, we need to question the conventional neutral methods of research in music studies. Drawing on the praxis of arts activists in Asia, Freire’s ideas about education and social change, and Appadurai’s concept of “research from below,” this chapter argues for a type of activist research that is both politically engaged and scholarly. In a case study on a theater tradition that was on the brink of disappearance, it emphasizes collaboration at all levels of research with members of the community whose problems are being studied, and extension of the right to research to nonacademics. Collaborative research engaging the communities themselves can be seen as an intervention whereby communities are empowered to question and voice their opinions about their socioeconomic, environmental, and cultural development and transformation. This study is located within the wider agenda of bridging the gaps between academia and practitioner, and decolonizing collaborative research where paradigms of knowledge flow across regions rather than from North to South.

“How Is That Going to Help Anyone?”

Scholarly knowledge about music has the potential to transform the ways individuals and groups think about and act towards pressing issues of concern. Writing primarily about the music and suffering of others, however, may not offer a wholly adequate form of reciprocity for people living in difficult situations. Is it possible to engage in ethnomusicological research that advances knowledge about music, produces theoretical innovation, addresses immediate social needs, and transforms oppressive conditions? In this chapter, I offer insights on possible ways to achieve these outcomes through discussing the workings of a collaborative ethnomusicological approach that merges critical analysis with activist research. I demonstrate how this approach works in practice through reflecting on and examining research activities from a social campaign aimed at reinstating meaningful religious activities carried out by members of Dinka Christian communities living in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. I also reflect on the wider role that a critically oriented activist ethnomusicology can offer in transforming the debilitating conditions of encampment. This chapter thus adds to the growing number of ethnomusicologists engaging in and writing about the benefits and challenges of activist research at a time when there is an urgent need to create a more just world.

Praxis through HONK!

This chapter traces the recent rise of activist street bands in the United States (mainly brass, woodwinds, and percussion—loud, lively, and mobile), and places them in an historical context, with specific attention to how bands across the country are experimenting to achieve the greatest social impact. In 2006, organizers in Somerville, Massachusetts, created the first festival for the gathering of activist street bands under the polysemic term “HONK!” They noted that bands honk their horns for the same reasons motorists honk: “to arouse fellow travelers, to warn of danger, to celebrate milestones, and to just plain have fun.” In the ensuing years, HONK! festivals quickly emerged in Seattle, New York, Providence, Austin, and Detroit. Participating bands draw from many musical traditions, including New Orleans, Balkan, Brazilian, and pop. Band members, generally amateurs, learn music aurally and/or through written music, allowing for a wide level of ability, often inspiring onlookers to play. Some bands have leaders; many are leaderless. In the public and digital commons, activist street bands attract attention. This chapter asks probing questions about whether they have an impact. What are the lessons learned about how best to partner with nonprofit organizations, NGOs, or campaigns to convey the desired messages? What significance do gender, ethnicity, and class have in these partnerships?