Interesting book about music and cultural change in eastern Europe

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Retuning-Culture-Musical-Changes-Central/dp/0822318555

Highlights from the ESA-Culture Conference @ Bocconi University, Oct 7-9

Milan: the fashion capital of Italy, if not the world; the home of the Last Supper;  three airports, a cheap public transportation system, the most amazing happy hours on the planet and Bocconi University of Business. It was for this last point that I visited this city recently although I had been most looking forward to the first point. Interestingly, it was the third and fourth points that most impressed me and the second point caused me considerable grief.

If you ever plan to visit Milan, here's a few tips:

• You need to book a visit to the Last Supper two weeks in advance.
• If you have bought a return ticket to Milan via some other airport like Schiperol in Amsterdam like I did, check which airport your return flight is from. I assumed it would be the same one I flew into. I was wrong.
• Don't bother eating in restaurants in the evening, just go to almost any bar between 6.30-9.30, order a drink, and enjoy a sumptuous buffet, as much as you want to eat.
• Enjoy the efficient and cheap, if confusing, public transportation system.

The real reason for my visit, of course, was the ESA-Culture conference. It was a lot larger than the Arts one in September. Too large for me, really. There were too many parallel sessions and often there was one speaker in each one that I wanted to see. On a number of occasions the one I did choose to see cancelled, so I was stuck in a session that did not really interest me. Having said that, the session I presented in was full of interesting people doing interesting research. It was also great to hook up with some fellow SocArts crew (Sigrun Einarsdottir, Pinar Guran and Tia DeNora). Below now are some bullet-pointed highlights:

• Round Table: I Make Art - I'm not sure about some of the topics the organisers chose for these roundtables (which Volker Kirchberg aptly pointed out was actually rectangular), but nevertheless there were some interesting talks. Two of them, Kirchberg and Victoria Alexander, expanded on similar talks given at the Arts conference (see previous post). Anna Lisa Tota gave an interesting  talk on public memory and public art. Stefano Baia Curioni, on the other hand, said some very bizarre things. Methinks he does not like Kirchberg's work very much (and I learned afterwards this feeling is reciprocal). Curioni mentioned something about the golden goose being just a golden chicken or perhaps, at the end of the day, just a colour. He was flamboyant, however, and I didn't nod off during his verbal explosions, not even once. So that's something, I guess...
• Susan Bruning (Southern Methodist) - Gave a legal and cultural perspective on conflicts over plundered artefacts, such as Egyptian treasures housed in the British Museum. She illustrated a number of ways in which such conflicts had been mediated and negotiated. There was little discussion or examination of what the citizens of these places actually thought about these objects, however. 
• Kobe De Keere (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) - Explained his asymmetrical coding of the interlinguistic conflict in Belgium.  His conclusions thus far indicate the the conflict, while not violent, is insurmountable at present due to the language that is used by either side to describe the problems from each position. Hedid mention at the end that good will was needed from both sides in a conflict like this (or like any conflict, really) which made me wonder if this was the spot where music could play a role.
• Yifat Gutman (New School, New York) - Discussed the relative new field of memory activism which essentially involves the utilisation of public spaces to allow narratives to emerge in the truth and reconciliation process. This process involves the fore-fronting of past issues in order to enable a public to see the present through a different lens. This seemed like a similar treatment of memory to my own research which looks at how imagined memories, whether real or now, are believed to be real in the present which influence behaviour in the future. 
• Gal Levy (Open University, Israel) - Discussed the notion of peace education in Israel. Apparently, all schools in Israel partake in peace education but conflict itself is rarely discussed. Levy points out that this paints an idealistic, almost fairy-tale, picture of peace without addressing the causes of a conflict that are readily noticeable. 
• Konstantina Zerva (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona) - Discussed her research on social exchanges via digital music. While I thought the talk about this process of interaction, ownership, copyright and social exchanges was useful and interesting, I couldn't help but think that digital music is not actually exchanged for anything. Unlike physical copying, digital anything is copied with no degradation of quality and can continue to be copied indefinitely in the same manner. It is not that there is a finite limit of the copies available, there is an infinite. When one purchases a download, for example, the person or site or company you bought it from still has it. It has suddenly expanded it's size or exposure but it is not exchanged. 
• Pinar Guran (Exeter) - It was nice to see my colleague, Pinar, presenting here and was a good explanation of how music and memory operates within a diaspora context. Her research on Turkish immigrants in Berlin and their relationship with Arabesque music illustrates succinctly how music one time and place can continue to resonate in a separate community long after that music no longer resonates within the place of origin. 
• Me - I talked about my concept of an ethnographic musician working in peace-building contexts. This essentially is an application of my previously discussed reflexive music-ethnography-conflict transformation model where ethnography-minded musicians from opposing sides of a conflict could work out procedural models to influence their own specific conflict. It seemed to go down well.

I also had the pleasure to meet, or meet again, some very interesting people such as Thomas Eberle (St. Gallen), Vera Zolberg (New School), David Inglis (Aberdeen), Harvey Molotch (New York) and Diana Crane (Pennsylvania).

 Me, David Inglis, Chris Thorpe, Nancy Hanrahan

Next stop: Sarajevo!

Highlights from the ESA-Arts Conference @ University of Surrey, Sep 1-3

This was a really enjoyable first exposure to the world of sociological conferences. I thought it would be a nice idea to provide some of the highlights here. The theme of the conferences was 'Arts and the Future' and there were many papers on issues regarding arts participation, boundaries, new technologies, consumption, markets, education, communities and concerns over the future of the arts.

The conference began with a round table discussion about the recently departed  Richard A. Peterson, a giant in the world of arts sociology. The discussion was led by editor of Poetics, Timothy Dowd and was suitably deferential yet there was a lively debate about Peterson's relevance in relation to Bourdieu's work.

One of the key note speeches was co-presented by Barbara Adam (professor of sociology at Cardiff) and Cardiff-based artist Seth Oliver. Adam has been working on the sociology of time for many years and it's fascinating stuff. In a nutshell, she claims that time is simply what you make it to be and that in turn is socially determined. That's over simplistic, but she has five monographs and 150 articles to explain it more detail. In fact, she thought the topic is so vast and complex that it was impossible to relay anything of importance to an audience in a one hour key note speech, whereas she noted that artistic approaches seem to encapsulate time concepts within the process of art-making and within the artwork itself. Thus began a collaboration with Oliver. The resulting presentation included large (eight foot high or thereabouts) scripts written in an almost poetic manner that hint at the complexities of time accompanied by static visual artworks by Oliver. Adam then did a short talk about the collaboration and read the texts while the audience listened and examined the artworks. I thought this was a very interesting experiment and I very much like the idea that art can transmit more information within a set period of time then scientific talk can. I'm not sure it was wholly successful, however, and I'm not convinced that many people in attendance gained a deeper insight into the time having witnessed this. I think the main problem is that the artworks were static. When I discussed this with Adam she said the fluidity is represented within the artwork; she could see the movement, or implied movement, within the object. This may be so, but if you want to feel a concept like time you need to experience it, which seems to me to need a time-based/procedural medium like music, film or dance. Oliver agreed to a certain extent, saying that they were continuing to experiment, that this was a work in progress, and mediums like film were being discussed. Nevertheless, it was fascinating and I need to read more of Adam.s work. It also relates to my plans of alternative deliveries of sociological material (cue mysterious music).

The other keynote speaker was from futurist Wendy L. Schultz. Her presentation was a technology-heavy affair and how these future or developing technologies might affect artistic practices. I was disappointed by this presentation as I expected to see things I had never even imagined. Unfortunately, if this is the future, it's already here and it's not all that interesting. The technological tattoos was interesting, however, although can you imagine what your body would like if this went wrong, the firmware became corrupt or a virus introduced into the system? Another big part of her presentation was the Playing for Change concept. This usage of music as a 'magical universal healing power' irritates me so much I think it warrants a whole other bit of writing so suffice it to say, I was not impressed.

techno tattoos

Playing for Change


I will just bullet-point some of the other highlights:

• Victoria Alexander (Surrey) - Painted a slightly depressing but not surprising picture about British cultural policy. She made a plea for the intrinsic long-term benefits of an arts education as opposed to the current and unlikely to change policy of arts for social inclusion or boosting the creative economy. Good call, I say, but this is unlikely to change anything, unfortunately.
• Dagmar Danko (Freiburg) - Noted how current artists treat themselves as brands and have looked the world of popular music as a business model and thereby increasing their media coverage and popular appeal. Vice versa, popular musicians increasingly associate themselves with visual artists to gain artistic gravitas. 
• Kyle Devine (Carleton) - Made a call for a sociology of sound as a merging of sound studies and music sociology. This was very interesting,especially his discussion of the usage of compression techniques. This reminded me of my experience of listening to BBC Radio 1 next to Radio 3. Radio 1 is hugely compressed and sounds very up front and consistently loud whereas Radio 3 is generally uncompressed and has a wide dynamic range. This could lead to all sorts of sociological inquiries into the nature of this compression, the different types of music broadcast on these stations, who listens to these stations, where are they when they listen, what are they doing when they listen and so on.
• Volker Kirchberg (Luneburg) - Discussed his recent project eMotion, which tracked gallery-goers movements, cognitive and emotional responses during their visit to a gallery in Switzerland. The tracking was done via a special glove which measured changes in skin viscosity and temperature. What a project! After a huge amount of data was collected and analysed, the resulting morale of the story is don't go to modern art galleries unless you are already feeling miserable or you are Swiss. 

• Nick Prior (Edinburgh) - Likes Bourdieu and made a call for the post-Bourdieu crowd (Hennion, DeNora, Born) not to throw him out with the bath water. I thought this was a fair point.
• Pedro Serrao (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) - Seemed to be making a call to view sociology of arts more as an arts sociology, akin to DeNora's move from sociology of music towards a music sociology. He didn't actually say it like that, but that's what I think he meant and, if so, that sounds like a good plan.
• Yael Teff-Seker (Hebrew University) - Conducted a fascinating study of the depiction of Arabs in Israeli children's literature between 1967-1987. Particularly interesting was that the portrayals were generally positive until the Yom Kippur war. Interestingly, the children who would have read these stories with negative stereotypes are now the ones in positions of power within Israel. Be careful what your children read!
• Abigail de Leon (University of Asia and the Pacific) - I missed her talk but we had a chat afterwards a we have some common ground. Her work on social capital and human development through choral music in the Philippines is not only interesting, it shows promise. I think the process has less to with choirs, however, and more about what singing means to a contextualised social group and that it is this contextually specificity that is important rather than choirs in general. I say this even though I am also studying choral practices.

Now, if I actually wrote this much every morning on my thesis I should have no problems!

ESA: Culture Branch Conference @ Bocconi University, Milan

Last week I presented at this conference. There was a little bit of overlap between the Arts and Culture branches, but it was predominately a new audience. I seem to have developed a certain style of presenting which eschews reading a script for a more improvised approach. Actually, I would prefer to present the material in a much more radical manner, but I thought, since I'm new to this game, I'd ease my way into the water gently. Anyway, below is the abstract until I find a publishing outlet:

The Potential Role of the Ethnographic Musician in Conflict Transformation

There have been many music and arts-related projects around the world that have in some manner attempted to promote peace or otherwise positively transform conflicts, and often these projects have been heralded by those involved as successes. Grounded evidence to support these claims is rather less abundant. Does this illustrate how music is an inappropriate and unreliable method for such purposes, or perhaps it is simply that how music interacts reflexively with perceptions of identity, memory, emotion, belief and behavior has not been satisfactorily explored in the context of conflict transformation? Based on grounded research on choirs in Sarajevo and inner-city London, this paper investigates the actualities of how music has been mobilised for conflict transformation purposes, how they have had shortcomings, and how future projects might improve on these approaches. This paper suggests that the music act itself has an innate potential to improve the subconscious pre-lingual level of understanding between the participants yet this has to date been little understood and under-utilised. The act of musical participation is akin to ethnography in as much as it can afford a deep understanding of the ‘other’, albeit at this pre-lingual level. Many conflict transformation practitioners, such as Lederach and Bercovitch, have claimed that increased understanding of the ‘other’ in conflict situations is necessary in order for positive negotiations to occur. This paper explores the logical extension of this thinking and suggest possible ways in which ethnographic musicians might be able to participate positively and effectively in conflict transformation scenarios.

Here I am with David Inglis, Chris Thorpe and Nancy Hanrahan

And here with the SocArts Team Milan: Pinar Guran, Tia DeNora, Sigrun Einarsdottir and David Inglis and Chris Thorpe discussing something very deep and meaningful in the back there.

ESA: Arts Branch - Conference @ University of Surrey, Guildford

In early September I presented at my first conference, the European Sociological Association - Arts Branch Midterm Conference at the University of Surrey, Guildford, UK. I think it went rather well. I'm now looking at places to publish the paper, but in the meantime here is the abstract:

Music as a Reflexive Process in Conflict Transformation Settings

Can music play a role in positive conflict transformation? Based on an examination of secondary sources that have addressed the contrasting musical conflict transformation projects of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and Hip Hop and primary data collected from Pontanima, an inter-religious choir in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina with an explicit conflict transformation remit, it appears that the response to this question is either negative or at least not wholly positive. Some commentators have suggested that music is no better equipped to positively deal with conflict than any other social activity and that it is only the belief that it can that drives such projects. Likewise, recent publications on the topic have done nothing to suggest that music is particularly effective in this manner, despite claims to the contrary from some of these authors. This paper will argue that it is this very belief in the power of music that is essential for understanding why such projects continue to proliferate despite evidence to suggest they are not effective and how a future successful project might be conceived. This paper will attempt to illustrate the reflexive process that links music to our concepts of personal and cultural identity, memory, emotion, beliefs and behaviour. Primary and secondary sources will be drawn upon to illustrate this process and how it could be applied to conflict transformation scenarios.

My first published article

Here's a link to my first article published in the online Music and the Arts in Action journal:

Music and Conflict Transformation in Bosnia: Constructing and Reconstructing the Normal

And here is the abstract for it:

Can music play a role in positive conflict transformation? Having developed a theoretical basis from a previous examination of the contrasting musical conflict transformation projects of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and Hip Hop, I have collected data on an inter-religious choir in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina with an explicit conflict transformation remit. Data was collected using ethnographic interviews and participant/observations with fifteen of the choristers in an attempt to answer this question. There was no direct access to audience data and any references to audience reception are from the choir members’ points of view. This detail highlights the issue of application of cultural findings within the choir to the wider social context. For the purposes of this paper therefore any discussions of wider social context are assumed to be mediated through the choristers themselves as members of the choir and the larger Sarajevo and Bosnian society. This data is compared with the previously developed theories and emerging themes are discussed. The fieldwork is ongoing and this article is a summary of findings thus far.

The data conflicts with many of the original theories and this highlights the importance of a grounded theoretical approach. The emerging themes include questions of Bosnian and musical identities; what is ‘normal’; ‘knowing one’s place’ in a formal musical environment; and the difference between the choir’s ‘mission’ of conflict transformation and the motivations of the choir members.

The findings so far indicate that this particular music conflict transformation project has had some success but it is limited to the types of people who become involved as choristers or audiences (all current data on audiences is from recall from the choristers, as no data collection directly from the audiences was possible). Data also indicates that music projects themselves should be reflexive as conflict situations are not static.

Finally, a blog!

I've finally done it! I have entered the blogosphere. Welcome to those who have migrated from the Facebook group and to anyone else who stumbles across this. I will endeavour to keep this site updated regularly with bits of my own research and activities in music sociology as well as links to other relevant material. Please feel free to contact me about anything that you read or see here. Cheers and a I hope you find something here to interest you.