Gender as a critique in/of ethnomusicology Flashcards
Research - How might you contact the community? (5 options)
Immersion/Participant Observation Talking to younger members Watch Rehearsals Talk to the person with authority/power Talk to the person with agency
Research - What kind of relationship would you cultivate with them? ( 3 options)
An ethical one
One that is open and honest
Consideration of tensions between the community and research
Research - How would you determine what’s important to them? ( 3 ideas)
Ask them! - Get a variety of opinions
Ask at different times spent with the community
Interviews - more formal register
Research - How might you share your findings? ( 4 ideas)
Record aspects of performance and rehearsal
Record interviews
Transcribe interviews
Draw diagrams etc.
What does ethnography mean?
Studying people
Who was Boas and what is he known for?
German-born American anthropologist that introduced the idea of cultural relativism - cultures cannot be ranked higher or lower - all humans see the world through the lens of their own culture
Who is Malinowski and what is he known for?
He was a Polish-British anthropologist and popularised ‘participant observation’. He also called anthropology the ‘imponderabilia of everyday life’ - meaning “a series of phenomena of great importance which cannot possibly be recorded by questioning or computing documents, but have to be observed in their full actuality”
Who was Geertz and what is he known for?
He was an American Anthropologist that insisted anthropologists needed to use ‘thick description’ analysis and many human action can mean many different things. ‘Thick description’ isan anthropological method of explaining with as much detail as possible the reason behind human actions’
Geertz also coined the term ‘Deep hanging out’type of informal social interaction where you spend time with people in non-work settings so they will see you as a co-worker and not an outsider. The results of deep hanging out often turn out to be the most useful and revealing data points from your research.
What is Salvage Ethnography?
Ethnography among dying cultures - not to save the people in the culture but to preserve and record of them for ‘Western Science’ - You have to acknowledge the mechanisms for why the tradition is dying - Malinowski
Who was James Clifford and what is something he is known for?
He is an American Professor that used reflexivity in his research - the concept of the observed observing the observer - ‘A Ceremonial Act of the Kula’, Photograph
Who was Mantle Hood and what is he famous for?
An American ethnomusicologist who specialised in Gamelan music. Mantle Hood explained ethnomusicology as being the “study of music wherever and whenever.”Hood required that his students learn to play the music they were studying. He gave the approach the name bi-musicality.
1980’s as a rupture - What is New Musicology?
Grew out of a turn towards criticism against positivism
Emphasis on meaning and interpretation - the situated listener - meaning changes depending on who’s listening
Frequent engagement in politics/power, philosophy, historical context, ethnomusicology and psychology
More Western Focused
Focus on Gender and sexuality
New Musicology - Who is Susan McClary and what is she known for?
An American Musicologist famous for he collection of essays called Feminine Endings. She focuses on
Musical construction of gender and sexuality
Gendered aspects of traditional music theory
Gender and sexuality in musical analysis
Music as a gendered discourse
Discursive strategies of women musicians
Rethinking music as a discourse
Musicology and/as meditation
New Musicology - Who is Suzanne Cusick and what is she known for?
Is a music historian and musicologist who asked the question what is music is sex/is musical performance a sexual act?
Should we understand gender as a performance?
Music can be a way of understanding sexuality and gender because of intense perfromativity
New Musicology - Who is Angela Davis and why is she known?
American political activist, scholar and author who posed the idea of a response to second wave feminism. She asked the question - what if we look at Billy Halliday and see how they were articulating black female consciousness? Rethinking history of music and history and gender
