Music and Conflict seems the moral to a cautionary tale. The collection derives from a prominent 2004 symposium at the University of Limerick. Distinguished editor John M. O’Connell introduces the volume with a well-written introduction and offers detailed summaries for each of the book’s six sections. Equally distinguished co-editor Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco ties the essays together at the end with what could be considered a white paper for future research. The twelve essays contained therein, by an international cadre of respected scholars, offer a range of insights on worthy projects, most of which appear to have been updated to about 2007/8. Yet the book as a whole strains in vain to make something more of its scattered contents. Perhaps justifiable as a snapshot of an event, the years involved in assembling it may give scholars, publishers, and grant committees fair warning that in some cases there may be better ways to follow up a meaningful conference than with published proceedings.
The central problem lies in the impossible expectations imposed by the book’s title. Discussions of conflict, and subsidiary scholarship involving terms such as “violence,” “war,” “peace,” and “reconciliation,” have been commonplace in ethnographic work for decades, seeking to contribute, it seems, to the work of international aid commissions. As ethnographers and critical studies scholars brought these terms into their own conceptual domains, moreover, they broadened them to apply to a wide variety of cases: from war and humanitarian disasters to symbolic human interactions and exchanges often framed as revealing larger social imbalances (causing the line between conflict and comparison, for example, to become hopelessly blurred). As O’Connell astutely describes in his introduction, this expanded understanding of conflict complicates attempts to define the field, even as the same move has allowed the discussion to become more welcoming to ethnomusicology. O’Connell acknowledges the pitfalls of entering such a discursively diffuse field. Nonetheless, believing the potential benefits of doing so outweigh the risks of sacrificing scholarly focuses, he argues for forging ahead. As a standalone essay, this nuanced and open-ended introduction offers a rich program for moving forward. The greater challenge lies with the execution.
The essays chosen from the symposium highlight, at least theoretically, “the role of music in conflict and to a lesser extent…the role of music in conflict resolution” (viii). The historical and geographic breadth that these contributions cover, however, sends the volume down a rabbit hole. Many of the book’s uniformly interesting chapters read like mainstream ethnomusicology articles with appended paragraphs—sometimes separated by a row of asterisks—that consider their relevance to conflict studies. Some describe musical activities during or after wartime; some speak to the history of music-making before and after nationalist splits; some chronicle conflicts between musical styles, or regulations associated with music-making in the Muslim world; others address the writers’ own attempts to use music to raise awareness of subaltern plights or to realign the social order. For those who see the world through conflict-colored glasses, this array may present an adequate structure for further conversation. To me these efforts effectively show what ethnomusicologists think about conflict studies, but do little to establish a unified conceptual push moving forward. Each essay’s seemingly obligatory attempt to redefine nearly any viable ethnographic paradigm as conflict studies instead acts as a slippery slope, sucking power out of a potentially rewarding central concept.
One key rationale for this book is to add to the literature on “applied ethnomusicology,” the pursuit of practical purpose that has been present in the field for decades, and has gained considerable interest in recent years. Some essays, such as those by Seeger and Reyes, guide the reader matter-of-factly through discussions of the ethnomusicologist’s position during cultural negotiations. Others, such as Svanibor Pettan, Britta Sweers, and Samuel Araújo et al. project a moral rectitude that sometimes seems troublingly devoid of self-doubt. Pettan mourns the refusal of large-scale organizations to pursue his ideas for helping the Kosova Roma, rather than trying to see himself in the larger structure of institutional priorities (188). Sweers measures the success of her anti-fascist organization’s concertizing efforts in Rostock, Germany, solely on anecdotal evidence, overlooking metrics of effectiveness crucial for furthering the conversation with many social scientists and aid workers (198). Araújo carefully constructs an alternate Freirean paradigm for community action, but then reveals that the project resulted mainly in talk before he blames an entrenched system (227). Indeed, O’Connell and Castelo-Branco rightly lead the charge for ethnomusicologists to bring their special skills to practical situations of international importance. But this volume offers only oblique models for doing so, and none that involve engaging ethnomusicologists’ own assertions from outside of the field. Rather than seeking how to achieve a balance between assertiveness and reality on the ground, championing ethnography and working productively with activists and organizations that value quantitative data and results, the book’s lack of critical reflection on this front can seem like spitting into the wind.
Admittedly, Music and Conflict lays out a difficult agenda for itself. My own attempts to address the relationship between music and the medical humanities continually face the same dilemma of moving from the disciplinary “rear hall” to the banquet table by trading on the power of musical ethnography—particularly when significant additional resources, audience, and impact opportunities are at stake in doing so. I certainly applaud the editors for their efforts to build what they see as a new and relevant paradigm, involving active participation in multiform efforts to address human inequality. At the same time, the volume provides inadequate answers to Daniel Sheehy’s key 1992 motivator for “applied ethnomusicology”—“To what end?” [1] With such a diffuse definition of conflict, it is hard to figure out a start, let alone an end.
Anne Rasmussen summarizes the volume best when she writes: “[w]hether one sees musical discourse…as a drama of plurality or conflict may be only a matter of interpretation” (167). Music and Conflict pushes both contributors and readers into the latter perspective, trying to bring ethnomusicologists to address real political situations while resisting the cross-disciplinary mediation that inevitably comes with such a task. Despite many good intentions, it silos a golden opportunity to move beyond musical advocacy into larger international partnerships. There may have been much more to gain by letting the introduction and conclusion stand alone as their own white papers, and letting the middle essays amplify the conference’s impact by engaging in active conversations elsewhere.
[1] Daniel Sheehy, “A Few Notions about Philosophy and Strategy in Applied Ethnomusicology,” Ethnomusicology 36(1992):323.
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[Review length: 1081 words • Review posted on January 29, 2014]