Friday 18 August 2017

The Relationship Between Wellbeing and Peacebuilding: A Musical Perspective

The UK Research landscape has in recent times become more and more focused on 'wellbeing.' This is not purely altruistic, it is, as most things, primarily economic. Despite social researchers attempts at challenging the dominant public discourse that wellbeing of the public was a leftwing or even communist agenda, it has been shown that a lack of social wellbeing directly correlates with an economic strain on the national health service. Early interventions to increase wellbeing are not medical in nature, because medical issues have not yet manifested theselves. These interventions need to be social and possibly artistic in nature. For the first time, the public discourse about the value of the arts is being taken seriously by policy makers and economists. But how does this increased focus on the arts and wellbeing relate, if at all, to peacebuilding?
Within Peacebuilding, there have been many discussions about the connections with wellbeing, although the debates tend to be between psychological or sociological approaches, or top-down versus bottom-up approaches. There has not been much in the way of discussing wellbeing as a peacebuilding process; they are both on a continuum of violence reduction and improving human fulfillment. Music has been considered within peacebuilding as an add-on to highlight issues and/or raise funds for campaigns. My own research and others suggest that music can play a much larger role, given its ability to affect identity, memory, belief and emotions, and therefore, behaviour. this new focus on wellbeing shows how the personal can connect to the social as well.
In other words, music and peacebuilding research needs to connect to music and wellbeing research in a more direct way. I am currently developing a network of music and wellbeing as well as a network of music and peacebuilding (through the Min-On Music Research Institute). I will post progress on these networks as they progress.

Tuesday 18 April 2017

Music and Conflict Studies Growing in Popularity

Music departments are starting to catch on to the concept of music and conflict and peacebuilding. For example, Keele has a module now entitled Music, Conflict and Social Change run by Dr Fiorella Montero-Diaz. This is part of the wider trend of engagement by applied ethnomusicologists such as Samuel Araujo, especially from those scholars from the global south. 

Monday 27 March 2017

Peace, Empathy and Conciliation Through Music Event

This sounds like a very interesting event in Australia in September. Featuring a keynote by Laura Hassler, the director of Musicians Without Borders, whom I met in Bogota last year.



Date: 21-22 September 2017
Venue: The University of Melbourne, Parkville VIC 3052
Submission Deadline: Thursday 1 June 2017
Event Registration Deadline: Saturday 1 July 2017
Enquiries: Samantha Dieckmann (samantha.dieckmann@unimelb.edu.au)
Organised by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, The University of Melbourne, in collaboration with the Faculty of the Victorian College of the Arts & Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, and Multicultural Arts Victoria, this collaboratory will bring together researchers, practitioners (musicians including performers, community musicians, music educators, music therapists; community development workers; social service workers; arts organisation delegates), and arts and community policymakers to share ideas around the ways that music is used to develop peace, empathy and conciliation. We invite submissions from local, national and international researchers and practitioners, and hope that the symposium will produce thought-provoking discussion and fruitful partnerships between industry, community and education sectors.

Organised around the United Nations International Day of Peace, this collaboratory will include a keynote address by Laura Hassler, founder and director of ‘Musicians Without Borders’.

Thursday 2 March 2017

ISA Conference, Baltimore - Part 1

I have just returned from the International Studies Association annual conference in Baltimore. This was a massive event with over six thousand delegates. The scope was staggering: it included everything from peace studies to coercion studies and everything in between. Enlightening to sit in on intelligence gathering strategy panels. I had been invited to participate on the Emerging Canadian Scholars panel that focused on arts-based approaches to IR. I will give a full review of this event later, but it was very fruitful, making links between the ISA itself, especially the Canadian branch, MOMRI, the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations in Coventry and Leuven University. Finally, I met Lesley Pruitt from the University of Melbourne who has written about music and peacebuilding in the below book, which I am now reading. I will give a review of this book later.




Wednesday 8 February 2017

The Society for Ethnomusicology's Music and Social Justice Resources Project

This is very interesting and hopefully a point of renewed contact between the music and peacebuilding researchers and the applied ethnomusicologists:

https://ethnomusicology.site-ym.com/page/Resources_Social

They are looking to develop a repository of projects worldwide that use music for social justice, conflict and inclusion. This is similar to an idea that Min-On Music Research Institute has been developing. Watch this space...

Thursday 19 January 2017

Idara Baraye Taleem-o-Taraqi (IBT)

I have only just discovered Idara Baraye Taleem-o-Taraqi (IBT), a peace and development organisation that operates in Bahrain. They attempt to promote cooperation and reduce conflict through inclusive development. They claim to reduce tensions between clans, tribes and communities by engaging with music, dance, traditional lore and crafts, poems and games. They have been in operation for about ten years and for five years they have also been hosting a music and arts festival that ends with a conference about cultural development that includes academics, communities and civil society. I have not as yet been able to find out much detail or any evidence of their success, but I will post it here when I do. Their website is occupied by a cosmetics company.