–Rebecca Dirksen
Graduate students in the IU Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology and I are pleased to introduce our Ethnomusicology Advocacy Toolkit. This web-based resource is conceived as a perpetual work-in-progress, as we grow this collection of materials together to assist with our work as applied/activist/engaged scholars, performers, educators, students, listeners, and the like.
The Ethnomusicology Advocacy Toolkit took early inspiration from the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville on August 11 and 12, 2017. Ethnomusicologist Benjamin Teitelbaum, who studies Nordic radical nationalism, wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that caught my attention — not only for its studied observation of the evolving rhetorical, ideological, and performative stance of white nationalists within recent years, but also because so many of the commenters pointedly questioned whether an ethnomusicologist could really have anything important to say about such hefty matters as politics, racial conflict and racism, civility (or lack thereof), and violence.
On the first day of class, I shared these comments (and the article) with the fourteen graduate students in my Applied Ethnomusicology seminar to get their reactions to these public perceptions of what ethnomusicologists and aligned scholars do. How do we respond to these (mis)perceptions and adjust our practices accordingly? What roles can and do we productively take on? How do we perform as politically and socially engaged members of society who have a stake in the political and social environment? How do we participate in causes that may only peripherally impact us, but which draw our concern anyway? How do we go about advocating for others, during the times when we have power, privilege, and resources on our side? When should we get involved, and when might it be better to stand on the sidelines? Where do we acquire the know-how, when such training is not necessarily a part of graduate coursework? How do we take lessons learned from our “on-the-ground” experiences and evaluate them in order to use them as models for future work?
Reflecting on the Charlottesville rally and other negatively charged events that can so easily render us helpless and frustrated, I proposed that we create a toolkit to assist with navigating some of these questions and challenges, using the American Folklore Society’s Folklore Advocacy Toolkit as a model. I then turned the project over to my graduate students, who enthusiastically spent the semester debating, researching, and building a foundation for the toolkit with the ultimate objective of drawing others in to discuss and contribute.
The Ethnomusicology Advocacy Toolkit is not in any way intended as a prescriptive approach or didactic method to community or civic engagement for ethnomusicologists, music scholars, music educators, or other interested parties. Immediate contexts and local concerns have particular ramifications and dimensions that can’t effectively be generalized, and individual researchers and their colleagues or interlocutors are best positioned to assess the concerns, needs, values, and beliefs, etc. that shape any given setting. Rather, this website is a compilation of resources that may be of use; it is offered as a place to initiate study and get ideas, and to find a wide variety of relevant materials quickly at hand.
The Toolkit is envisioned as an ongoing project, which will be periodically updated by Applied Ethnomusicology seminar students at IU each time the course is taught. The next round of work on this project will take place during Fall 2019. We extend a warm invitation to colleagues who would like to share their perspectives, experiences, philosophies, methodologies, and case studies.
–Jennie Williams
The Ethnomusicology Advocacy Toolkit is designed to inform and guide scholars who are interested in engagement with advocacy through their work. Our aim is to connect ethnomusicologists and scholars of related fields to resources that apply their research potential beyond conventional academic endeavors. We also welcome educators, students, and other interested individuals to use this website who may find these resources helpful. This website is intended as a work in progress, in that the resources provided here will be continually improved, developed, and expanded via collaborative and volunteer efforts from students, faculty, and applied scholars and activists.
This website was initially created by graduate students in an “Applied Ethnomusicology” seminar taught by Dr. Rebecca Dirksen in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University in the fall of 2017. Each of the students brought their individual experiences and research interests to the table, generating ideas for what could be possible in this toolkit. We believe this project is important because we recognize that the division between pure and applied scholarship is, to cite Dr. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, a “mistaken dichotomy.” Though her critique was published in 1988 and centered on the field of Folklore, this sentiment carries the same weight for ethnomusicologists and humanities scholars broadly still today. How can we as ethnomusicologists conduct and publish meaningful research while advocating for the interests of the people and interlocutors with whom we often also collaborate?
Advocacy & Outreach
Copyright
Funding
General Resources
Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E):
Music Education:
Scholar and Advocate Profiles
As of 2018, this website represents the work of:
Aliah Ajamoughli, Amy Aiyegbusi, Jamaal Baptiste, Kelly Bosworth, Lydia Cullen, Adah Hetko, Kennedi Johnson, Rebecca Kunin, Amelia Lopez, Kate Mullen, Jeremy Reed, Dikshant Uprety, Jennie Williams, and Claire Wright.
Our sincere appreciation to those who have made the Ethnomusicology Advocacy Toolkit possible, including Dr. Rebecca Dirksen of the IU Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology; Dr. Stephen Stuempfle of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM); Dr. Monika Herzig of the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs; Dr. Nazareth Pantaloni III of the IU Copyright Program; Dr. Tim Lloyd and Dr. Jessica Turner and the American Folklore Society (AFS); the SEM Applied Ethnomusicology Section; the SEM Council; and all those who volunteered their time to speak with us at the SEM 2017 Annual Meeting, including Dr. Shannon Dudley, Dr. Miriam Gerberg, Dr. Meryl Krieger, Dr. Guilnard Moufarrej, Dr. Svanibor Pettan, Dr. Michael Birenbaum Quintero, Dr. Jonathan Ritter, Dr. Rebecca Sager, Dr. Matt Sakakeeny, Huib Schippers, Dr. Daniel Sheehy, and Dr. Olivier Urbain.
We anticipate doing our next round of filming scholar interviews for this project during the SEM 2019 Annual Meeting. We invite you to participate — please be in touch (ethnoadvocacy [at] gmail [dot] com) if you have something you would like to contribute!