[Bilimsel Haber] CFP: migrating musics conference

[Gonul Pultar]

From: Barry Shank <shank.46 at osu.edu>


Conference announcement:

Migrating Music: Media, Politics and Style
An international conference
Venue: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Date: 10 ­ 11 July, 2009


Over the last twenty years or so there has been much interest in music 
and diaspora, that is in migrating music. No doubt this interest is
historically grounded. Movement of peoples and their music across the 
world has been occurring to an unprecedented extent and in novel ways.
Researchers in a variety of disciplines have then responded by studying 
musical flows and the formation of hybrid styles, but also the way in 
which apparently similar music can mean quite different things in 
different contexts. We might sum up the overarching framework as one in 
which researchers focus on the (largely benign) diversification and 
pluralisation of musical meaning and experience.

We do not seek to overturn this framework. Quite simply, it taps an
important part of the reality of migrating music in the contemporary 
period. But we do want to bring up a number of problems and issues, and 
call on colleagues to think about what these might mean. Media. 
Mediation has been crucial to the global movement of musics, from the 
hymnal to the Web 2.0. Diasporas take recordings with them when they 
move; broadcasters and record companies cater to them in new lands; 
World Music was launched as a marketing and media category. What, then, 
is the impact of mediation on migrating music, and are diasporas and 
host communities mere recipients, or rather active shapers of their 
musical diets?

Politics. The orthodoxy of today is that musical migration is
predominantly a Good Thing, and that hybridity always has a
progressive dimension. By the same token authenticity has become a
straw target. But can the authentic be a significant value for musical
cultures as they are relocated around the world? And were early
commentators entirely wrong to worry about Americanisation or
Westernisation? Indeed are there new models that take into account
Bollywoodisation and the effects of other international culture
industries? Does a focus on hybridisation sometimes obscure larger
relations of economic, cultural, and aesthetic domination?

Style. Hybridity is rarely used in verb form. But the processes of
stylistic transformation wrought by musical migration are very much 
about action ­ making change across time, space, codes and cultures. 
What are these "trans" processes? Do they always depend on mixing, or 
can new migrant styles emerge from endogenous reference back to home 
styles? And how far are music makers and audiences consciously pushing 
to create the new?

We invite proposals for papers which address these and related questions 
from across the disciplines: (ethno)musicology, cultural and media 
studies, sociology, anthropology, history and performance studies. The 
conference emerges from the AHRC research project based at the Open 
University, Tuning In: Diasporic Contact Zones @ BBC World Service. So 
contributions which concern international broadcasting and/or the BBC 
are particularly welcome. We are also keen to receive proposals from 
practitioners ­ music makers, journalists and broadcasters.

Proposals for 20 minute papers should be between 150 and 200 words in
length.

Themed panels are welcome too. For panel proposals please
submit 3 paper abstracts together with a panel title, a 50 word panel
rationale, and the name of your panel convenor/chair.

Please send to Karen Ho at K.D.Ho at open.ac.uk. Closing date for
submission is 22nd February, 2009.

Keynote speakers:
Timothy Taylor ­ Professor of Ethnomusicology and Musicology, UCLA
Sara Cohen ­ Reader in Music, Director of the Institute of Popular
Music, University of Liverpool
Charlie Gillett ­Journalist
Martin Stokes ­ University Fellow in Music, St Johns College, Oxford
University
Ruth Finnegan ­ Visiting Professor of Sociology, The Open University

Conference convenors are Jason Toynbee and Byron Dueck, The Open
University

Conference administrators are Karen Ho and Josine Opmeer, CRESC (Open
and Manchester Universities)

Barry Shank
<shank.46 at osu.edu>