All the way from … authenticity and distance in world music production

World music and the narratives it produces are at the very centre of a formerly transnational production and consumption process. However, the shortened distance between the sites of production and consumption of this good, brought on by migration and greater participation, has created a dilemma for the UK-based artists who perform it: how to maintain authenticity without the added value of ‘distance’. Therefore, the aim of this article is to examine the ways in which musicians and other participants attempt to overcome this problem and in doing so (re)-construct particular aspects of their identity. Rather than being just another critique on authenticity, this article uses distance as an organizing concept in understanding the challenges facing world music production in the UK

Injecting the African spirit of humanity into teaching, learning and assessment of musical arts in the modern classroom

African music scholars are currently grappling with the challenges of refocusing musical arts based on indigenous knowledge for classroom practice as well as developing Africa-sensed musical arts curricula that use culturally appropriate pedagogies derived from viable theoretical, philosophical and performance practices of indigenous music. The African spirit of humanity encourages all-inclusive participation that bonds participants in performance-based learning situations. The philosophy framing an assessment model should derive from the ideology of humanity (grounded in humane qualities and aspirations) embedded in musical arts education indigenous to the area of a culture. This model should enable and acknowledge demonstration of differentiated innate attributes and take into account the compatible skills of every participant in the learning activity. Rigid assessment yardsticks are often transferred from Western elitist music education practice and used in the assessment of the musical arts in Africa, thus compromising innate musicality. In this article we advocate for assessment initiatives that should enhance the humanity virtues of indigenous intellectual and praxial paradigms, as well as taking note of epistemological logic embedded in contemporary realities. Two different examples from two African countries are used to illustrate our argument.http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmaa202016-01-19hb201

Ascertainment Bias in a Historic Cohort Study of Residents in an Asbestos Manufacturing Community

This paper describes follow-up for a cohort of 4530 residents living in the asbestos manufacturing community of Ambler, PA, U.S. in 1930. Using re-identified census data, cause and date of death data obtained from the genealogic website Ancestry.com, along with geospatial analysis, we explored relationships among demographic characteristics, occupational, paraoccupational and environmental asbestos exposures. We identified death data for 2430/4530 individuals. Exposure differed significantly according to race, gender, age, and recency of immigration to the U.S. Notably, there was a significant difference in the availability of year of death information for non-white vs. white individuals (odds ratio (OR) = 0.62 p-value < 0.001), females (OR = 0.53, p-value < 0.001), first-generation immigrants (OR = 0.67, p-value = 0.001), second-generation immigrants (OR = 0.31, p-value < 0.001) vs. non-immigrants, individuals aged less than 20 (OR = 0.31 p-value < 0.001) and individuals aged 20 to 59 (OR = 0.63, p-value < 0.001) vs. older individuals. Similarly, the cause of death was less often available for non-white individuals (OR = 0.42, p-value <0.001), first-generation immigrants and (OR = 0.71, p-value = 0.009), second-generation immigrants (OR = 0.49, p-value < 0.001), individuals aged less than 20 (OR = 0.028 p-value < 0.001), and individuals aged 20 to 59 (OR = 0.26, p-value < 0.001). These results identified ascertainment bias that is important to consider in analyses that investigate occupational, para-occupational and environmental asbestos exposure as risk factors for mortality in this historic cohort. While this study attempts to describe methods for assessing itemized asbestos exposure profiles for a community in 1930 using Ancestry.com and other publicly accessible databases, it also highlights how historic cohort studies likely underestimate the impact of asbestos exposure on vulnerable populations. Future work will aim to assess mortality patterns in this cohort