Music and Beyond Intractability

I have long used the excellent Beyond Intractability resource on peacebuilding. It has informed my understanding of conflict and peace processes and it is organised so effectively that I have been thinking about this format for the Min-On Music Research Institute website. So I was surprised that I missed the article The Processes of Music and Peacebuilding by Allie Adelman from 2011 on this very site.
Adelman refers to many of the available writings on the subject, which were not many at that time.She  draws heavily upon Urbain's first edited volume on the subject, Music and Conflict Transformation. As many of you know, this was not only the subject of my PhD thesis, I now work closely with Olivier Urbain at the Min-On Music Research Institute and we have since published a follow up book Music, Power and Liberty. While she does briefly mention that music can just as easily (or more easily) be used for destructive purposes, she focuses on the positive potentials. To this effect, there is an over-reliance on either anecdotes from famous people, like Nelson Mandela, or broad sweeping statements attesting to the power of music with very little evidence provided. Adelman even refers to Pontanima, the choir that I researched and took part in during my PhD. She does not go very far to explain what was really happening within the musical experience itself or what specifically these experiences changed and how.
Adelman concludes with another broad claim for the power of music, referring to Lederach's influential The Moral Imagination. This book, and Lederarch, was an inspiration for myself as well, but even within that book there are broad unsubstantiated claims made on the behalf of the power of music. This article is a useful introduction to some of original writings on the subject of music and peacebuilding, but considering how useful the rest of the site is, I strongly believe that this needs some serious updating with more current scholarship and a much more thorough empirical approach. In addition, more practical applications and models would also be useful, as would methods of evaluation. Otherwise, music might will continue to be believed to function powerfully in peacebuilding projects with no ability to back these beliefs up to stakeholders or measure the outcomes. This, in turn, could damage the whole concept and prevent future projects from ever being realised.

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.