{"id":11553,"date":"2021-01-05T18:02:46","date_gmt":"2021-01-05T18:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/?p=11553"},"modified":"2021-01-10T14:47:15","modified_gmt":"2021-01-10T14:47:15","slug":"intercultural-musicking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/?p=11553","title":{"rendered":"{CONCEPTUALISING} Intercultural Musicking … appropriate versus appropriative methodology"},"content":{"rendered":"

As many of you will know, for the last decade I have been teaching World Music Ensemble Performance<\/em> (klezmer) – WMEP-klezmer for short – in our Music Department. I have a musical self (website<\/a>) in addition to my TESOL and Intercultural Communication\/Education academic roles. WMEP-klezmer is an area of my professional practice that has its conceptual underpinnings and its research possibilities \u2013 see the Music Department’s Intercultural Musicking<\/em><\/a> research theme [as reported here in the LANTERN blog under the Projects<\/strong> menu under the Richard’s Projects<\/em><\/strong><\/a> submenu.]. The musical conceptual and research aspects may seem somewhat removed from my home disciplines in Education. However, for me, there are intriguing connections and concerns between these \u2018homes\u2019. In this longer than usual blog entry, I reflect on some of these connections.<\/p>\n

1) Appropriate methodology <\/strong><\/p>\n

Appropriate methodology<\/em> has been a long-standing concern in TESOL[i]<\/a> and, also, for me personally – my thesis[ii]<\/a> was shaped by this concern. As TESOL practitioners, how do we, in context-sensitive ways, approach the challenge of teaching the complicated global phenomenon that is English[iii]<\/a>. It is a challenge for all of us given English\u2019s colonial\/colonising past and its ongoing role in privileging certain perspectives, voices, and epistemologies[iv]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Similar problematisation arises with world music education given the tendency for traditional and context specific musics to be otherised and seen from the perspective of the dominant musical cannon as simple and\/or exotic. Study of such musics has critiqued for its essentialism, otherisation, and tokenism, but can also be seen as an opportunity for musicians in Music Departments like ours to develop their bi-musicality[v]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In my case, the question is: how should we teach WMEP-klezmer in our UK university context given the concerns about klezmer and “cultural necrophilia”[vi]<\/a>, cultural appropriation, and the need to decolonise the ethnomusicology curriculum.<\/p>\n

2) Small culture approach \/ ecological analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n

An important intercultural lens I bring to my understanding of klezmer teaching is a small culture approach<\/em>[vii]<\/a>, i.e. I try to understand the emergent, shared practices arising in our klezmer teaching and evaluate their appropriacy for this context of musician development.<\/p>\n

Further, I am keen to adopt an ecological perspective[viii]<\/a> to trace the shaping influences upon WMEP-klezmer methodology and explore the critical intentionality (or critical intentional action) of the practitioners involved[ix]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thus, I am finding the familiar conceptual lenses from my home disciplines to be helpful in theorising my WMEP-klezmer practice (i.e. developing my praxis) and in navigating the ongoing debates in my adopted musical home, and, within it, the field of Ethnomusicology, and the practice of Performing Ethnomusicology[x]<\/a> through WMEP.<\/p>\n

3) Cultural appropriation\/appreciation<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a recent Equity in Music Education contribution to Music Educators Journal<\/em>, Karen Howard[xi]<\/a> suggests that music educators need to guard against a culturally appropriative<\/u> methodology, and make efforts to develop a culturally appreciative methodology. As informed by Scafidi\u2019s definition of cultural appropriation[xii]<\/a>, underpinning this suggestion is an understanding that culturally appropriative methodology involves \u201ctaking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else\u2019s culture without permission\u201d. Such \u201ctaking\u201d can be \u201charmful when the source community is a minority group that has been oppressed or exploited in other ways or when the object of appropriation is particularly sensitive\u201d.<\/p>\n

To understand WMEP-klezmer, we need to recognise that klezmer has become a commodified global musical genre and is no longer simply the specific tradition of an oppressed cultural group. Given this status, WMEP-klezmer can be understood less in terms of culturally appropriative processes and more in terms of cultural translation[xiii]<\/a> processes. I find Holliday\u2019s ideas about small culture formation[xiv]<\/a> helpful for understanding this process of cultural translation-in-the-moment (of ensemble performance).<\/p>\n

4) Epistemic justice \/ intercultural ethic <\/strong><\/p>\n

For me, the respect that should be accorded other (musical) traditions connects with the work by Zhuo Min Huang<\/strong> and myself on epistemic injustice[xv]<\/a> and the value of an intercultural ethic when striving to avoid such epistemic injustice[xvi]<\/a>.\u00a0In our most recent thinking on this issue[xvii]<\/a>, we add a critical dimension and suggest that scholars need to:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. recognise the role of epistemological power \u2013 i.e. those critically engaged in interconnected knowledge-work need to recognise that certain ideas and ways of thinking accrue epistemic authority or status, occupy higher positions on the epistemic gradient, and dominate less powerful epistemologies and ways of articulating them;<\/li>\n
  2. develop critical reflexivity \u2013 i.e. those critically engaged in interconnected knowledge-work need be cognisant of the role of epistemological power, and become critically aware of, and transparently demonstrate accountability regarding, their own epistemological practices; and<\/li>\n
  3. practise epistemic activism \u2013 i.e. those critically engaged in interconnected knowledge-work need to (be willing to) challenge the existing epistemic hegemonies and injustices affecting their own practice and participation in the wider global knowledge-arena.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    WMEP-Klezmer methodology can be underpinned by such a critical intercultural ethic. The Applied Ethnomusicology field[xviii]<\/a> embraces the transformative aspects of such criticality. I am intrigued by the critical turn blowing through the disciplines of Ethnomusicology, Intercultural Communication[xix]<\/a> and Applied Linguistics[xx]<\/a> as well as Academic Literacy and Education[xxi]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    5) Appropriate versus appropriative methodology<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Bearing in mind the above points, I am currently playing with the contrast between:<\/p>\n