Call for Chapter/Proposals: "Music and Sustainability"

Call for Chapter/Proposals: "Music and Sustainability"
Deadline: May 31, 2024

With the current (re)emergence of broad-based social environmental activism, the topic of sustainability has become an integral part of public and political discourse around the globe. However, the modern discourse on sustainability is primarily understood from an ecological or economic perspective. Cultural sustainability receives comparatively little attention (Lettau, Mtaku and Otchere 2022). Moreover, the majority of instances that connect culture to sustainability often do so from a development policy perspective, particularly through UNESCO and UN initiatives such as e.g. the Decade of Culture and Development (1988-1997), the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Heritage (2001) and the current Sustainable Development Goals. In this context people often face the challenge of bridging two areas of interest: Developmental issues compete with preservationist attitudes that focus on the protection and preservation of cultural practices (Chocano 2022).

Likewise, in ethnomusicology sustainability has recently become an increasingly prominent topic and as such, the perspectives and conceptualizations diversified. Still in 2009, American ethnomusicologist Jeff Todd Titon stated that the topic was hardly being addressed in ethnomusicology and formulated a program based on ecological principles with research ethics of applied or engaged ethnomusicology at its core. In Titon’s understanding ethnomusicological work should be part of the pursuit of cultural sustainability. This includes field research as well as the engagement of individual scholars and institutions such as archives, museums and research institutes (2020).

Following Titon’s pioneering work, ethnomusicological discourse on sustainability formed different areas of inquiry. One major field is often subsumed under the term ecomusicology which can broadly be described as “the coming together of music/sound studies with environmental/ecological studies and sciences” (Allen and Dawe 2016, 2). A second major field of ethnomusicological engagement with (cultural) sustainability is the work with “endangered music cultures” that works towards safeguarding and reinvigorating musical practices, cultures and communities (Schippers and Grant 2016; Ross 2021; Seeger and Schippers 2022). A third field is the self-reflexive discourse on the sustainability of ethnomusicological research (and academic work) itself which spans from questioning the impact of academic flying (Grant 2018) to accessibility and repatriation of ethnographic archival materials (Moon 2016; Seeger and Chaudhuri 2015).

The topic offers many points of contact between different academic orientations. For instance, a transdisciplinary review on music and sustainability was offered by Kagan and Kirchberg (2016) in which they discussed how audiences can be “trained” for a “transformation towards sustainability.”

Based on these thoughts, this volume seeks to critically examine the conceptual linkages between culture and sustainability. We welcome chapters that address various aspects of this theme, including but not limited to:

  • Conceptualizations and critiques of cultural sustainability.

  • The role of music, culture and communities in sustainability discourses.

  • Alternative conceptualizations of sustainability, especially with respect to indigenous

    viewpoints and experiences from the Global South

  • Intersections between music, ecology and sustainable development.

  • Explorations of non-sustainable musical practices.

  • Approaches to sustainable ethnomusicology and research.

  • The importance of resilience for music cultures, especially with regard to the past pandemic

    years

  • Discourses of cultural sustainability and their distinction from related discourses such as cultural heritage studies and salvage ethnography.

  • The potential of musical practices to promote cultures of sustainability.

  • The ecological and economic dimensions of sustainability in musical contexts.

  • Music practices in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals

  • Critical perspectives on cultural sustainability and power structures.

Interested authors are invited to submit an abstract of approximately 350 words that clearly outlines their intended contribution to music.and.sustainability[at]gmail[dot]com by May 31, 2024. Acceptance decisions will be communicated by July 7.

Full chapters should be between 5000 to 8000 words in length including references and submitted by November 30, 2024. Publication of the edited volume by University of Hildesheim Press is planned for the end of 2025.

Editorial team: Martin Ringsmut, Michael Fuhr, Mira Wöllenstein

References

Allen, Aaron S., and Kevin Dawe, eds. 2016. Current Directions in Ecomusicology. Music, Culture, Nature. New York: Routledge.

Chocano, Rodrigo. 2022. “Musical Sustainability vis-à-vis Intangible Cultural Heritage: Safeguarding and Incentives in the Fiesta de la Virgen de la Candelaria of Puno, Perú.” Ethnomusicology Forum 31 (2): 283–303.

Grant, Catherine. 2018. “Academic flying, climate change, and ethnomusicology: personal reflections on a professional problem.” Ethnomusicology Forum 27(2): 123–135.

Kagan, Sacha. 2018. “Culture and the Arts in Sustainable Development: Rethinking Sustainability Research.” In: Torsten Meireis and Gabriele Rippl, eds. Cultural Sustainability: Perspectives from the Humanities and Social Sciences, 127–139. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781351124300-11

Lettau, Meike, Mtaku, Christopher Y. and Otchere, Eric D. eds. 2022. Performing Sustainability in West Africa: Cultural Practices and Policies for Sustainable Development. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003261025

Moon, Jocelyn. 2016. “Uploading Matepe: Online Learning, Sustainability and Repatriation in Northeastern Zimbabwe.” In: Klisala Harrison, ed. Applied Ethnomusicology in Institutional Policy and Practice, 190–209. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. http://hdl.handle.net/10138/167857

Ross, Sarah, ed. 2021. Jüdisches Kulturerbe MUSIK – Divergenzen und Zeitlichkeit. Überlegungen zu einer Kulturellen Nachhaltigkeit aus Sicht der Jüdischen Musikstudien. Bern: Peter Lang.

Schippers, Huib, and Catherine Grant, eds. 2016. Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures. An Ecological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Schippers, Huib, and Anthony Seeger, eds. 2022. Music, Communities, Sustainability: Developing Policies and Practices. Oxford University Press.

Seeger, Anthony, and Chaudhuri, Shuba. 2015. “The Contributions of Reconfigured Audiovisual Archives to Sustaining Traditions.” World of Music (1): 21-34.

Titon, Jeff Todd. 2009. “Music and Sustainability: An Ecological Viewpoint.” The World of Music 51(1): 119-137. Titon, Jeff Todd. 2020. Toward a Sound Ecology: New and Selected Essays. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

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