Long Time - The State of Things in Music and Conflict Transformation

It has been a very long time since I posted anything on this blog, for which I am mightily sorry. I have not been idle, though. I have finally submitted my PhD thesis entitled "Singing to be Normal: Tracing the Behavioural Influence of Music as Conflict Transformation" and I will complete my viva in August. I have an article under review in Poetics, I'm co-authoring/co-editing a book with Olivier Urbain from the Toda Institute entitled Music, Power and Liberty, and I am now an editor and journal manager of the Music and the Arts in Action Journal. I have a couple of conference presentations coming up, including "Protests as Events/Events as Protests" at Leeds Metropolitan University and the European Sociological Association Arts Branch conference in Turin. I have been spending the rest of my time applying for jobs or trying to create my own. Hopefully something will materialise before I starve.
So what has the world been up to since my last post? What follows are some things that have caught my attention:

In Jamaica and other hurricane prone Caribbean countries, poverty and a lack of opportunities has led many men to become involved in crime and violence. Recently, Catholic Relief Services have started the Youth Emergency Action Committee with the help of USAid in order to refocus youth attention on how to best respond to hurricanes and help their communities. They have discovered that the most successful manner in which to do this is through rap music in what they labelled 'edutainment.' This approach has also been used successfully for sex and AIDS education in Ghana. What seems to be happening here is not directly the result of the music, but music that appeals or resonates with a particular group promotes a more attentive mode of attention where messages located in the lyrics may infiltrate into memory, especially if the experience is enjoyed and repeated.

Cambodia Living Arts is an organisation founded by Arn-Chorn Pond, a musician, former child soldier and survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide. The principles behind the organisation suggest that the arts are needed in order to restore identity, pride and hope to the population. This is particularly remarkable in Cambodia where, according to the Huffington Post, up to 90% of artists were killed. As in other dictatorships, despots are often the first to understand the power of music and the arts. In order to control a population in order to commit atrocities, the victims need to be seen as less than human. This is impossible if the victims are engaged with cultural expression which is the ultimate humanising activity. Despite this fact, aid agencies rarely support cultural activities. This has been criticised by research conducted by the Post-conflict Reconstruction and Development Unit at the University of York as well as by the popular press like the Huffington Post. As a result, Cambodia Living Arts has produced a month-long arts festival in New York called Season of Camboda, with the support from various American philanthropists in order to raise awareness. The localised use of music in this case is the real music and conflict transformation work, yet that is not what is seen in the festival. The festival is an advertisement and fund-raiser, yet that is what audiences will remember. They will also remember a spectacle of sorts that represents a culture they are probably less familiar with. the danger here is that music and the arts is still seen as entertainment or representing a culture that is somehow rarefied, separate and unknowable. Hopefully the festival has been successful in raising awareness and funds for the important work that they do in their own communities. I hope that their work is not commodified too much in the process.

That's probably enough for this post.

Project Begun on the Role of the Arts in the Arab Spring

It has been such a long time since my last post, and much has happened. Last August I discovered the work of Sultan Barakat, director of the Post-conflict Reconstruction and Development Unit and the University of York. In particular, I was interested to read about his meeting with the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers nearly ten years ago, the proceeds of which are located here. In it he mentions the current problems with reconstruction and development initiatives, namely, that they tend to focus almost exclusively on state and economy which does not deal with underlying cultural issues which may have caused the original conflict. This lack of cultural development hindered progress, in Barakat's opinion. He never overtly mentions music or the arts, but the way he was discussing culture he might as well have. Since he is only in York and I am in Leeds, I pay him a visit, thinking it is always good to network, but not thinking anything concrete would come of it. After a pleasant half an hour, Barakat (although by this time we are on a first name basis) presents me with a proposal he has written on request from the British Council for research into the role of the arts in the Arab Spring. He says that there is nothing mentioned at present about music in this report, but perhaps I should write that in. Without hesitation, perhaps the last time in this enterprise that I did not hesitate, I agreed. It was such a perfect fit considering my research area. That was the last I heard about it for quite some time, which was really very disappointing, but it gave me time to continue writing up my thesis, which I continued to do throughout the autumn.

Near the end of October, I get a message from the PRDU inviting me to a meeting with the British Council regarding the proposal I helped out with. This meeting was very interesting: the British Council were very excited about the project and were imagining that, if this project was successful, they could roll out similar projects all over the world. The proposal needed some tweaks, however, which I did quickly before my half-term family holiday, but, again, that was the last I heard for quite some time. I began to think it was never going to happen.

Anyway, it did. Eventually. At the start of December I was informed that I was to go to Egypt for two weeks in less than a week to begin field work. If I had been ten years younger with no dependants, I might have jumped, but it was impossible for me, but the project began anyway, although I have as yet not done any field work, rather working from home or York, collating data and organising the field work placements. So far the project has collected data from Egypt and Morocco and soon I, yes I, will be going to Tunisia, and the rest of the team will later go to Libya. The purpose of the project is to attempt to understand how the arts and social change affect each other and what role, if any, has the British Council and other international institutions played. In addition, the British Council were keen to know what they might be able to do in the future in these situations. Very exciting. It is too early to discuss the findings yet, but so far there is little evidence to contest my theories on the nature of music and conflict espoused elsewhere on this blog. All very promising! In the meantime, I have had to take an official break from the PhD, even though I was only a couple of months short of submitting a draft.

The project is due to end in mid-June, but there is talk about a public dissemination phase, which would presumably include radio, national press, popular journals, websites and possibly even television. That would be exciting to be part of that, but we shall see.

Meanwhile, I will begin sharing some of the links I have been discovering.

Process Arts

Interesting site collating approaches to facilitating group interactions through aesthetic thinking:

http://processarts.wagn.org/wagn/one_response

Freedom to Create Prize

I came across this and thought I should post it. It's essentially two huge prizes for for artists who use their art courageously for social justice, including one prize for an artist imprisoned because of it. Sounds amazing on one level yet I can't help but think that this prize money would be better spent helping with the social justice itself rather than rewarding an individual's efforts in this way. What do you think?

About the Freedom to Create Prize

Launched in 2007, the Freedom to Create Prize is a celebration of the courage and creativity of artists, and the positive influence of their work to promote social justice and inspire the human spirit. The Prize is open to all forms of art, in any creative field and any individual or group of any gender, religion or nationality.

In 2010, nearly 2,000 artists entered from more than 100 countries.

In 2011, a total prize fund of US$100,000 will be awarded to the winning artists and their nominated advocacy organisations to further the cause their artwork has highlighted.

Opportunities for Artists

The Freedom to Create Prize offers a range of opportunities and platforms for artists across the world. In addition to competing for the Freedom to Create Prize, all entrants are also considered for selection to:

Perform at the Freedom to Create award festival in November 2011. This year's celebrations in Cape Town, South Africa will reveal the 2011 Prize winners and celebrate the courage and creativity of this year's participating artists.

Showcase their work as part of the international Freedom to Create Exhibition - a touring exhibition of selected work entered for the Freedom to Create Prize. In addition to recent exhibitions in Mumbai and New York, Freedom to Create Exhibitions have also been held at the Cairo Opera House in Egypt, the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare, the Queen’s Palace in Kabul, Afghanistan and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Enter 2011

The Prize has two categories: the Main Prize, open to individuals or artistic groups in all creative fields over the age of 16 and the Imprisoned Artist Prize, focusing on artists who are currently imprisoned for their artwork.

The 2011 Freedom to Create Prize is now open for entries via our website until 30 July 2011 (deadline extended). Please seehere for further information on how to enter the prize.

Judging Panel

Read here about the Judging Panel for this year’s Freedom to Create Prize and read more about the members of the 2010,2009 and 2008 Judging Panel.

Award Ceremony

Winners of the 2011 Freedom to Create Prize will be unveiled in November 2011, at the Freedom to Create Award Ceremony in Cape Town, South Africa.

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: 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.