Toda Institute Music, Power and Liberty Conference

In early February this year I presented at the Toda Institute's Music, Power and Liberty Conference in Paris. The Toda Institute is infamous in my mind for publishing the first academic book on the subject of Music and Conflict Transformation entitled, funnily enough, Music and Conflict Transformation, edited by the director of the institute, Olivier Urbain. Due to the leading nature of such a publication I have naturally analysed pretty much every page in depth and I unfortunately found it generally wanting in terms of empirical and theoretical rigour or practical application. So it was with some trepidation that I accepted the invitation for this conference. I am happy to report that my fears were unfounded. I found the papers presented at conference stimulating, utterly relevant, and the approaches significantly more grounded and realistic than in the previous 2008 publication. There is a slight danger of perhaps too much cynicism, but there still seems to be enough drive and optimism to keep the momentum going.
The papers presented in Paris will eventually make their way into a book to follow the original Music and Conflict Transformation book, and since I will most likely be involved in this project to one degree or another, I will not comment on each paper just yet. Suffice it to say for now that there were three broad categories that were addressed:

1) Music, Power and Social Change: Music has been actively engaged with in the socio-cultural arena to influence the status quo; either to keep it static or to challenge and overturn it. There were many presenters from North Africa and their talks were completely resonant with my current research on the role of the arts in the Arab Spring.

2) Unification versus Censorship: There is the age old battle of using music as a tool of expressing togetherness and/or fostering social unification versus powers that would rather keep people apart, usually for social control purposes. There is also the continued battle between the romantics and the realists.

3) How music influences belief systems through education and technology: Increasingly researchers are talking about belief and how this is a key factor in behaviour and also how music and education influence belief. More recently there have been studies on how music and education is transmitted via social media and other technological platforms, thus effectively spreading belief.

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.