Sound Futures Exploring Contexts For Music Sustainability

The sustainability of music and other intangible expressions of culture has been high on the agenda of scholars, governments and NGOs in recent years. However, there is a striking lack of systematic research into what exactly affects sustainability across music cultures. By analyzing case studies of nine highly diverse music cultures against a single framework that identifies key factors in music sustainability, Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures offers an understanding of both the challenges and the dynamics of music sustainability in the contemporary global environment, and breathes new life into the previously discredited realm of comparative musicology, from an emphatically non-Eurocentric perspective. Situated within the expanding field of applied ethnomusicology, this book confirms some commonly held beliefs, challenges others, and reveals sometimes surprising insights into the dynamics of music cultures. By examining, comparing and contrasting highly diverse contexts from thriving to 'in urgent need of safeguarding,' Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures analyzes sustainability across five carefully defined domains. The book identifies pathways to strategies and tools that may empower communities to sustain and revitalize their music heritage on their terms. In this way, this book contributes to greater scholarly insight, new (sub)disciplinary approaches, and pathways to improved practical outcomes for the long-term sustainability of music cultures. As such it will be an essential resource for ethnomusicologists, as well as scholars and activists outside of music, with an interest in the preservation of intangible cultural heritage.

Environmental sustainability and human cultural sustainability are inextricably linked. Reversing damaging human impact on the global environment is ultimately a cultural question, and as with politics, the answers are often profoundly local. Cultural Sustainabilities presents twenty-three essays by musicologists and ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, folklorists, ethnographers, documentary filmmakers, musicians, artists, and activists, each asking a particular question or presenting a specific local case study about cultural and environmental sustainability. Contributing to the environmental humanities, the authors embrace and even celebrate human engagement with ecosystems, though with a profound sense of collective responsibility created by the emergence of the Anthropocene. Contributors: Aaron S. Allen, Michael B. Bakan, Robert Baron, Daniel Cavicchi, Timothy J. Cooley, Mark F. DeWitt, Barry Dornfeld, Thomas Faux, Burt Feintuch, Nancy Guy, Mary Hufford, Susan Hurley-Glowa, Patrick Hutchinson, Michelle Kisliuk, Pauleena M. MacDougall, Margarita Mazo, Dotan Nitzberg, Jennifer C. Post, Tom Rankin, Roshan Samtani, Jeffrey A. Summit, Jeff Todd Titon, Joshua Tucker, Rory Turner, Denise Von Glahn, and Thomas Walker

The Routledge Companion to Music and Human Rights is a collection of case studies spanning a wide range of concerns about music and human rights in response to intensifying challenges to the well-being of individuals, peoples, and the planet. It brings forward the expertise of academic researchers, lawyers, human rights practitioners, and performing musicians who offer critical reflection on how their work might identify, inform, or advance mutual interests in their respective fields. The book is comprised of 28 chapters, interspersed with 23 ‘voices’ – portraits that focus on individuals’ intimate experiences with music in the defence or advancement of human rights – and explores the following four themes: 1) Fundamentals on music and human rights; 2) Music in pursuit of human rights; 3) Music as a means of violating human rights; 4) Human rights and music: intrinsic resonances.

The sustainability of music and other intangible expressions of culture has been high on the agenda of scholars, governments and NGOs in recent years. However, there is a striking lack of systematic research into what exactly affects sustainability across music cultures. By analyzing case studies of nine highly diverse music cultures against a single framework that identifies key factors in music sustainability, Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures offers an understanding of both the challenges and the dynamics of music sustainability in the contemporary global environment, and breathes new life into the previously discredited realm of comparative musicology, from an emphatically non-Eurocentric perspective. Situated within the expanding field of applied ethnomusicology, this book confirms some commonly held beliefs, challenges others, and reveals sometimes surprising insights into the dynamics of music cultures. By examining, comparing and contrasting highly diverse contexts from thriving to 'in urgent need of safeguarding,' Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures analyzes sustainability across five carefully defined domains. The book identifies pathways to strategies and tools that may empower communities to sustain and revitalize their music heritage on their terms. In this way, this book contributes to greater scholarly insight, new (sub)disciplinary approaches, and pathways to improved practical outcomes for the long-term sustainability of music cultures. As such it will be an essential resource for ethnomusicologists, as well as scholars and activists outside of music, with an interest in the preservation of intangible cultural heritage.

This two-volume collection transforms our understanding of the discipline of ethnomusicology by exploring how ethnomusicologists can contribute to positive social and environmental change within institutional frameworks. The second volume focuses on the intersection of ecological and social issues and features a variety of Indigenous perspectives

For decades, ethnomusicologists across the world have considered how to affect positive change for the communities they work with. Through illuminating case studies and reflections by a diverse array of scholars and practitioners, Transforming Ethnomusicology aims to both expand dialogues about social engagement within ethnomusicology and, at the same time, transform how we understand ethnomusicology as a discipline. The first volume of Transforming Ethnomusicology focuses on ethical practice and collaboration, examining the power relations inherent in ethnography and offering new strategies for transforming institutions and ethnographic methods. These reflections on the broader framework of ethnomusicological practice are complemented by case studies that document activist approaches to the study of music in challenging contexts of poverty, discrimination, and other unjust systems.