Michael B. Silvers
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780252042089
- eISBN:
- 9780252050831
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042089.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Voices of Drought is an ethnomusicological study of relationships between popular music, the environmental and social costs of drought, and the politics of culture and climate vulnerability in the ...
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Voices of Drought is an ethnomusicological study of relationships between popular music, the environmental and social costs of drought, and the politics of culture and climate vulnerability in the northeast region of Brazil, primarily the state of Ceará. The book traces the articulations of music and sound with drought as a discourse, a matter of politics, and a material reality. It encompasses multiple entwined issues, including ecological exile, poverty, and unequal access to vital resources such as water, along with corruption, prejudice, unbridled capitalism, and rapidly expanding neoliberalism. Each chapter is a case study: the use of carnauba wax, formed by palm trees as a protective climate adaptation, in the production of wax cylinder sound recordings in the late nineteenth century; the political significance of regionalist popular music, especially baião and forró, in the mid-twentieth century; forró music and practices of weather forecasting that involve listening to bird calls; the production and meaning of the soundscape of a small city as it involves musician Raimundo Fagner; social and musical change at the turn of the twenty-first century; and the cancellation of state-sponsored Carnival celebrations due to a costly multi-year drought in the 2010s. Demonstrating how ecological crisis affects musical culture by way of and proportionate to social difference and stratification, the book advocates a focus on environmental justice in ecomusicological scholarship.Less
Voices of Drought is an ethnomusicological study of relationships between popular music, the environmental and social costs of drought, and the politics of culture and climate vulnerability in the northeast region of Brazil, primarily the state of Ceará. The book traces the articulations of music and sound with drought as a discourse, a matter of politics, and a material reality. It encompasses multiple entwined issues, including ecological exile, poverty, and unequal access to vital resources such as water, along with corruption, prejudice, unbridled capitalism, and rapidly expanding neoliberalism. Each chapter is a case study: the use of carnauba wax, formed by palm trees as a protective climate adaptation, in the production of wax cylinder sound recordings in the late nineteenth century; the political significance of regionalist popular music, especially baião and forró, in the mid-twentieth century; forró music and practices of weather forecasting that involve listening to bird calls; the production and meaning of the soundscape of a small city as it involves musician Raimundo Fagner; social and musical change at the turn of the twenty-first century; and the cancellation of state-sponsored Carnival celebrations due to a costly multi-year drought in the 2010s. Demonstrating how ecological crisis affects musical culture by way of and proportionate to social difference and stratification, the book advocates a focus on environmental justice in ecomusicological scholarship.
John Holmes McDowell, Katherine Borland, Rebecca Dirksen, and Sue Tuohy (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780252044038
- eISBN:
- 9780252052972
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252044038.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Performing Environmentalisms: Expressive Culture and Ecological Change is a fresh contribution to the environmental humanities, offering ten original essays anchored in the fields of folklore studies ...
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Performing Environmentalisms: Expressive Culture and Ecological Change is a fresh contribution to the environmental humanities, offering ten original essays anchored in the fields of folklore studies and ethnomusicology that engage productively with forms of traditional expressive culture at the crux of environmental debate and conflict. These essays draw on ethnographic research in several world regions to explore the ways individuals and groups express and perform their connection to the environment as they interpret changing environments, manage ecological crises, and seek to change policies, minds, and practices. Performing Environmentalisms brings together a set of essays that focus on genres and practices of expressive culture—songs, stories, handicrafts, and ritual and activist practices—as these are employed to come to grips with ecological change, and in doing so, argues for performing environmentalisms as a valuable perspective on ecological change and environmental crisis in the Anthropocene. The book consists of a substantial introduction, laying the foundation for thinking about expressive culture as an instrument of environmental discourse, followed by essays grouped into three sections: Perspectives on Diverse Environmentalisms, Performing the Sacred, and Environmental Attachments; a thoughtful afterword by Eduardo Brondizio locates Performing Environmentalisms as a welcome contribution toward a holistic approach to environmental issues.Less
Performing Environmentalisms: Expressive Culture and Ecological Change is a fresh contribution to the environmental humanities, offering ten original essays anchored in the fields of folklore studies and ethnomusicology that engage productively with forms of traditional expressive culture at the crux of environmental debate and conflict. These essays draw on ethnographic research in several world regions to explore the ways individuals and groups express and perform their connection to the environment as they interpret changing environments, manage ecological crises, and seek to change policies, minds, and practices. Performing Environmentalisms brings together a set of essays that focus on genres and practices of expressive culture—songs, stories, handicrafts, and ritual and activist practices—as these are employed to come to grips with ecological change, and in doing so, argues for performing environmentalisms as a valuable perspective on ecological change and environmental crisis in the Anthropocene. The book consists of a substantial introduction, laying the foundation for thinking about expressive culture as an instrument of environmental discourse, followed by essays grouped into three sections: Perspectives on Diverse Environmentalisms, Performing the Sacred, and Environmental Attachments; a thoughtful afterword by Eduardo Brondizio locates Performing Environmentalisms as a welcome contribution toward a holistic approach to environmental issues.
Peter Barry and William Welstead (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781784994396
- eISBN:
- 9781526132260
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784994396.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This volume of essays explores the scope for a further extension of ecocriticism across the environmental humanities. Contributors, who include both established academics and early-career ...
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This volume of essays explores the scope for a further extension of ecocriticism across the environmental humanities. Contributors, who include both established academics and early-career researchers in the humanities, were given free rein to interpret the brief. This collection of essays is unusual in that it considers collaborations between individuals both within a single discipline and between various creative disciplines. Subjects include exploring familiar environments close to home, and those such as Iceland and Antarctica, where narratives of climate, geology and ecology provide a stark backdrop to creative and observational output. A further innovation is the inclusion of essays on public art, natural heritage interpretation and the visualisation and aesthetic impact of wind farms. The book will be of interest to writers, artists, students and researchers in the environmental humanities and beyond, as well as those with general interests in innovative cultural responses to the environment.Less
This volume of essays explores the scope for a further extension of ecocriticism across the environmental humanities. Contributors, who include both established academics and early-career researchers in the humanities, were given free rein to interpret the brief. This collection of essays is unusual in that it considers collaborations between individuals both within a single discipline and between various creative disciplines. Subjects include exploring familiar environments close to home, and those such as Iceland and Antarctica, where narratives of climate, geology and ecology provide a stark backdrop to creative and observational output. A further innovation is the inclusion of essays on public art, natural heritage interpretation and the visualisation and aesthetic impact of wind farms. The book will be of interest to writers, artists, students and researchers in the environmental humanities and beyond, as well as those with general interests in innovative cultural responses to the environment.
Timothy J. Cooley (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042362
- eISBN:
- 9780252051203
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042362.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This collection of essays is driven by the proposition that environmental and cultural sustainability are inextricably linked. The authors are unified by the influence of the pioneering work of Jeff ...
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This collection of essays is driven by the proposition that environmental and cultural sustainability are inextricably linked. The authors are unified by the influence of the pioneering work of Jeff Todd Titon in developing broadly ecological approaches to folklore, ethnomusicology, and sustainability. These approaches lead to advocacy and activism. Building on and responding to Titon's work, the authors call for profoundly integrated efforts to better understand sustainability as a challenge that encompasses all living beings and ecological systems, including human cultural systems. While many of the chapters address musicking and ecomusicology, others focus on filmmaking, folklore, digital media, philosophy, and photography. Organized into five parts, Part 1 establishes a theoretical foundation and suggests methods for approaching the daunting issues of sustainability, resilience, and adaptive management. Part 2 offers five case studies interpreting widely divergent ways that humans are grappling with ecological and environmental challenges by engaging in expressive culture. Part 3 illustrates the role of media in sustainable cultural practices. Part 4 asks how human vocal expression may be central to human self-realization and cultural survival with case studies ranging from the digital transmission of Torah chanting traditions to Russian laments. Part 5 embraces Titon's highly influential work establishing and promoting applied ethnomusicology, and speaks directly to the themes of advocacy and activism.Less
This collection of essays is driven by the proposition that environmental and cultural sustainability are inextricably linked. The authors are unified by the influence of the pioneering work of Jeff Todd Titon in developing broadly ecological approaches to folklore, ethnomusicology, and sustainability. These approaches lead to advocacy and activism. Building on and responding to Titon's work, the authors call for profoundly integrated efforts to better understand sustainability as a challenge that encompasses all living beings and ecological systems, including human cultural systems. While many of the chapters address musicking and ecomusicology, others focus on filmmaking, folklore, digital media, philosophy, and photography. Organized into five parts, Part 1 establishes a theoretical foundation and suggests methods for approaching the daunting issues of sustainability, resilience, and adaptive management. Part 2 offers five case studies interpreting widely divergent ways that humans are grappling with ecological and environmental challenges by engaging in expressive culture. Part 3 illustrates the role of media in sustainable cultural practices. Part 4 asks how human vocal expression may be central to human self-realization and cultural survival with case studies ranging from the digital transmission of Torah chanting traditions to Russian laments. Part 5 embraces Titon's highly influential work establishing and promoting applied ethnomusicology, and speaks directly to the themes of advocacy and activism.
Timothy J. Cooley (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042362
- eISBN:
- 9780252051203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042362.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This critique of sustainability is intended to improve cultural sustainability advocacy in ecomusicology, sound studies, and music. The idea of sustainability is expanded in four ways: first, by ...
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This critique of sustainability is intended to improve cultural sustainability advocacy in ecomusicology, sound studies, and music. The idea of sustainability is expanded in four ways: first, by acknowledging the challenge of sustainability, getting past basic meanings of “endure,” and using sustainability more robustly in its meanings of “change”; second, by arguing for the foundational role of nature / environmental studies; third, by understanding sustainability as a lens rather than a goal, noun, or verb; and fourth, by arguing for aesthetics as an important addition to three-part sustainability theories. Through the lens of a change-oriented, environment-based sustainability, music and sound studies scholars can demonstrate how listeners and musicians value sounds and therefore cultural actions that exist in ethically charged contexts.Less
This critique of sustainability is intended to improve cultural sustainability advocacy in ecomusicology, sound studies, and music. The idea of sustainability is expanded in four ways: first, by acknowledging the challenge of sustainability, getting past basic meanings of “endure,” and using sustainability more robustly in its meanings of “change”; second, by arguing for the foundational role of nature / environmental studies; third, by understanding sustainability as a lens rather than a goal, noun, or verb; and fourth, by arguing for aesthetics as an important addition to three-part sustainability theories. Through the lens of a change-oriented, environment-based sustainability, music and sound studies scholars can demonstrate how listeners and musicians value sounds and therefore cultural actions that exist in ethically charged contexts.
Katherine Borland, John Holmes McDowell, and Sue Tuohy
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780252044038
- eISBN:
- 9780252052972
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252044038.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter introduces the Diverse Environmentalisms Research Team (DERT) project behind the creation of this volume as an ecomusicological and ecopoetic response to the existential crisis facing ...
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This chapter introduces the Diverse Environmentalisms Research Team (DERT) project behind the creation of this volume as an ecomusicological and ecopoetic response to the existential crisis facing life on Earth. Born out of a faculty initiative in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University that quickly grew to involve like-minded environmentalist scholars at various institutions across the US and their research collaborators around the world, DERT studies performances of expressive culture that offer essential resources to individuals and communities as they seek to interpret their changing environments and to manage, and often resist, the destructive effects of ecological change. The introduction presents three themes that shape this volume: Perspectives on Diverse Environmentalisms, Performing the Sacred, and Environmental Attachments.Less
This chapter introduces the Diverse Environmentalisms Research Team (DERT) project behind the creation of this volume as an ecomusicological and ecopoetic response to the existential crisis facing life on Earth. Born out of a faculty initiative in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University that quickly grew to involve like-minded environmentalist scholars at various institutions across the US and their research collaborators around the world, DERT studies performances of expressive culture that offer essential resources to individuals and communities as they seek to interpret their changing environments and to manage, and often resist, the destructive effects of ecological change. The introduction presents three themes that shape this volume: Perspectives on Diverse Environmentalisms, Performing the Sacred, and Environmental Attachments.
Aaron S. Allen
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780252044038
- eISBN:
- 9780252052972
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252044038.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter outlines the burgeoning subfields of the environmental humanities and liberal arts and, particularly, of ecomusicology, a convergence of music/sound studies, culture studies, and ...
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This chapter outlines the burgeoning subfields of the environmental humanities and liberal arts and, particularly, of ecomusicology, a convergence of music/sound studies, culture studies, and environmental/ecological studies. In this time of ecological crisis, the author argues that it is essential to reorient the ways we understand the humanities away from anthropocentric thinking and toward an ecocentric approach that recognizes the inherent value of ecological systems within which humans are but one part. The author calls for an environmental liberal arts education that equips people to live well and to care for, nurture, and enhance life itself. In this interdisciplinary endeavor, ethnomusicologists and folklorists can offer the arts of listening well to human and nonhuman subjects.Less
This chapter outlines the burgeoning subfields of the environmental humanities and liberal arts and, particularly, of ecomusicology, a convergence of music/sound studies, culture studies, and environmental/ecological studies. In this time of ecological crisis, the author argues that it is essential to reorient the ways we understand the humanities away from anthropocentric thinking and toward an ecocentric approach that recognizes the inherent value of ecological systems within which humans are but one part. The author calls for an environmental liberal arts education that equips people to live well and to care for, nurture, and enhance life itself. In this interdisciplinary endeavor, ethnomusicologists and folklorists can offer the arts of listening well to human and nonhuman subjects.
Jennifer C. Post
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780252044038
- eISBN:
- 9780252052972
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252044038.003.0009
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Focusing on the mobile pastoral herders’ engagement with the environment, Jennifer Post uses a new mobilities paradigm to analyze the impacts of environmental change and related political and ...
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Focusing on the mobile pastoral herders’ engagement with the environment, Jennifer Post uses a new mobilities paradigm to analyze the impacts of environmental change and related political and economic factors on the environment, lives, and musical practices of Kazakh herders. Kazakh musicians express their attachments to place as they sing about their histories and movement, about local resources and lands they have cared for, and about memories of community events that are rapidly disappearing. Kazakh herders have had to relocate to urban centers in Mongolia and Kazakhstan, and, as their lifeway rooted in pastoralism wanes, this shared body of songs play a role in environmental activism, promoting Kazakh identity and the environmentally-focused values and knowledge carried in song.Less
Focusing on the mobile pastoral herders’ engagement with the environment, Jennifer Post uses a new mobilities paradigm to analyze the impacts of environmental change and related political and economic factors on the environment, lives, and musical practices of Kazakh herders. Kazakh musicians express their attachments to place as they sing about their histories and movement, about local resources and lands they have cared for, and about memories of community events that are rapidly disappearing. Kazakh herders have had to relocate to urban centers in Mongolia and Kazakhstan, and, as their lifeway rooted in pastoralism wanes, this shared body of songs play a role in environmental activism, promoting Kazakh identity and the environmentally-focused values and knowledge carried in song.
Mark Pedelty
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780252044038
- eISBN:
- 9780252052972
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252044038.003.0011
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Mark Pedelty introduces activist projects designed to raise awareness about the harmful impacts of noise pollution on the local ecosystem in the Salish Sea region of Western Washington State and ...
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Mark Pedelty introduces activist projects designed to raise awareness about the harmful impacts of noise pollution on the local ecosystem in the Salish Sea region of Western Washington State and British Columbia. The projects emerged out of a human conflict over the meanings of the sounds created by the increasing number of jet exercises at the Whitby Island naval training grounds. Pedelty’s analysis of changes to the soundscape and peoples’ responses to them draws upon concepts in semiotic ecology, including the idea of sound waves as signifiers. Based on the ideas that hearing is a function of ideology and that sounds articulate values to listeners, Pedelty illustrates the ways music and expressive cultures can be deployed to intervene and to adjudicate such conflicts.Less
Mark Pedelty introduces activist projects designed to raise awareness about the harmful impacts of noise pollution on the local ecosystem in the Salish Sea region of Western Washington State and British Columbia. The projects emerged out of a human conflict over the meanings of the sounds created by the increasing number of jet exercises at the Whitby Island naval training grounds. Pedelty’s analysis of changes to the soundscape and peoples’ responses to them draws upon concepts in semiotic ecology, including the idea of sound waves as signifiers. Based on the ideas that hearing is a function of ideology and that sounds articulate values to listeners, Pedelty illustrates the ways music and expressive cultures can be deployed to intervene and to adjudicate such conflicts.
Attilio Lafontant and Guillermo Rosabal-Coto
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- February 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780197600962
- eISBN:
- 9780197600993
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197600962.003.0013
- Subject:
- Music, Philosophy of Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter focuses on the paradoxical nature of the demand for wooden instruments created by programs like El Sistema, the national music education program in Venezuela. Suggesting a sociological ...
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This chapter focuses on the paradoxical nature of the demand for wooden instruments created by programs like El Sistema, the national music education program in Venezuela. Suggesting a sociological link between neoliberal, anthropocentric music education practices (emphasizing virtuosity, hierarchy, and competitiveness) and the resultant exploitation of the natural world, the chapter problematizes the rising demand for tonewoods in Venezuela as a disturbingly ironic meeting of needs through El Sistema’s work with students in disadvantaged contexts. As such, the loss of local luthier expertise, the resultant economic impact, and the destruction of nature involved in the mass production of musical instruments are all revealed as vestiges of neo-colonialism in this groundbreaking work.Less
This chapter focuses on the paradoxical nature of the demand for wooden instruments created by programs like El Sistema, the national music education program in Venezuela. Suggesting a sociological link between neoliberal, anthropocentric music education practices (emphasizing virtuosity, hierarchy, and competitiveness) and the resultant exploitation of the natural world, the chapter problematizes the rising demand for tonewoods in Venezuela as a disturbingly ironic meeting of needs through El Sistema’s work with students in disadvantaged contexts. As such, the loss of local luthier expertise, the resultant economic impact, and the destruction of nature involved in the mass production of musical instruments are all revealed as vestiges of neo-colonialism in this groundbreaking work.