CFP, Civilisations 67 - Sounding Religious Transnationalism

Journal for The Scientific Study of Religion, 2006

Music and Arts in Action, 2011

Music and Migration, 2010

Music and Migration is a special issue in two book like volumes (in English (278 pp) and in Portuguese (298pp)) with 12 scientific articles by ethnomusicologists, music historians, sociologists and political scientists from different schools, on subjects related with music and migration from all over the world (Dan Lundberg on Kurdish, Turkish, Irish, and former Yugoslavian groups – Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs, Croatians, … in Stockohlm; John Baily on Afghans in Australia, Dieter Christensen on Kurds in Berlin; Mark Naison on Jazz and social urbanization in the Bronx, in New York; Martiniello and Lafleur on Latin music on the Presidential elections of 2008 in the US, among others on the music of other populations such as Indo-Pakistani Bollywood consumers in Spain, Cape-Verdean and Goan music producers and consumers in Portugal, Portuguese Fado musicians in the US, …). Besides the 12 articles it contains also 18 opinion and research notes by musicians, teachers, researchers, students, music managers and interested listeners on subjects related with the topic. A substantial introduction includes theoretical considerations connecting these with earlier ethnomusicology writings on music and migration (namely those on the volume edited by Baily and Collyer, among others) and presents the volume in which music deals with basic citizenship and migration rights and specificities, unmasking boundaries, nurturing participation, pacifying emotions and acknowledging its power to inflame them, challenging categories and definitely renewing references in the current global era.

This compilation of articles resulting from papers given on the occasion of three different seminars in three consecutive years from 2013 to 2015 (Perspectives on an 21st Century Comparative Musicology: Ethnomusicology or Transcultural Musicology?; Living Music: Case Studies and New Research Prospects, and Musical Traditions in Archives, Patrimonies, and New Creativities) is an interesting mixture of very updated and at the same time well-grounded insights into the core problems of a discipline that starts to question itself: Ethnomusicology or transcultural musicology? It is not by accident that the title of the first conference is also the general topic of the publication, whether there are sections on local music practices, historical research activities or general anthropology. The central question seems to be the denial of purity in cultures and the consequences for anything ethnomusicology has achieved so far.

Religions, 2021

This article serves to introduce a special issue of Religions, titled Music in World Religions. A 2015 article by religion scholar Isabel Laack claimed that the study of music and religion has been neglected by Laack’s peers in the field of religions. Responding to Laack, I argue that scholars of music have been making important contributions to the study of music and religion and, indeed, have been addressing the twelve specific topics she highlights for decades. After summarizing academic works which respond to Laack’s twelve categories of inquiry, I introduce each of the articles in this special issue, showing that each of these also address the gap in the literature that Laack perceived. Ultimately, I argue that transdisciplinarity in the study of music and religion is alive and well, and is exemplified both by historic writings and by those contained in Music in World Religions.

2020

The current sense of crisis in the study of migration and music calls out for a broader contextualization. The study of migrant culture sat comfortably for a while with a structural-functionalist culture concept emphasizing boundedness and stasis, figured as transitional, adaptive, evidence of modernization or Westernization. An orientation toward hybridity in the 1980s began to shake some of these certainties, even if it kept others (the normative framework of the nation-state) in place. This article argues that work on refugees and diasporas at around the same time departed from them more radically. The current moment is one in which the final vestiges of language about migrant culture as adaptive have been swept away and in which the populist evocation of a migrant crisis at our gates has posed unsettling challenges. This article explores the tensions in the current literature between an emphasis on migrant creativity and survival, mobility and motility, and identity and citizens...

Religions, 2021

This article reviews recent (2015–2021) English-language publications that focus on music in/as/about religion (broadly defined)—including world, folk, and indigenous religious traditions. While research related to Euro–American-based Christian music accounts for more publications than any other single tradition examined, this review intentionally foregrounds religions that are not as well represented in this literature, such as Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, and folk and animistic traditions from around the world. Recurring trends within this literature elucidate important themes therein, four of which are examined in detail: (1) race and ethnicity, (2) gender and sexuality, (3) music therapy (and medical ethnomusicology), and (4) indigenous music. Broadly speaking, recent (2015–2021) publications related to religion, music, and sound reflect growing societal and political interests in diversity and inclusion, yet there remain perspectives, ideas, and ontologies not yet accounted f...

2014