The Rise and Fall, and the Rise (Again) of Feminist Research in Music: 'What Goes Around Comes Around'

This article reports from a two-phase study that involved an analysis of the extant literature followed by a three-part survey answered by seventy-one women composers. Through these theoretical and empirical data, the authors explore the relationship between gender and music’s symbolic and cultural capital. Bourdieu’s theory of the habitus is employed to understand the gendered experiences of the female composers who participated in the survey. The article suggests that these female composers have different investments in gender but that, overall, they reinforce the male habitus given that the female habitus occupies a subordinate position in relation to that of the male. The findings of the study also suggest a connection between contemporary feminism and the attitudes towards gender held by the participants. The article concludes that female composers classify themselves, and others, according to gendered norms and that these perpetuate the social order in music in which the male norm dominates

When Women Play: The Relationship between Musical Instruments and Gender Style

In many societies, musical roles are divided along gender lines: women sing and men play. Men also sing and women sometimes play; yet, unlike men, women who play often do so in contexts of sexual and social marginality. This essay surveys the literature on women's use of musical instruments in a variety of social and cultural contexts and presents some contemporary anthropological theories regarding the interrelationship between social structure and gender stratification. The author concludes that women's use of musical instruments is related to broader issues of social and gender structure, and that changes in the ideology of these structures often reflect changes that affect women as performers

Ethnomusicologist Sexed and Sexualized: Theorizing A Woman in the Field

Current practice in ethnomusicology is lacking a theoretical framework within which women–as fully embodied instruments of research–conduct fieldwork in a manner that is simultaneously ethical, knowledge-producing, and safe. Against the backdrop of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements in the United States, and a groundswell of accusations of sexual harassment and violence in both academic and professional western music circles this is particularly critical (Amienne 2017; Brown 2018; Buron 2018; DeChaira 1988; Doherty 2018; Freeman 2014; Goodhill and Slobin 2017; Gossett and Bellas 2002, Richards, Crittenden, Garland, and McGuffee 2014; McSweeney 2017; Rupert and Homes 1997, Skinner et al. 1995; Tenbrunsel, McKenzie, and Diekmann 2019; Yoshihara 2007). The necessity of relationship-building while in the field is undeniable, but human interaction is inherently messy and imbued with all manner of personal characteristics, including sexuality. Researchers such as Wong (2015) argue for inclusion of “erotics” in ethnomusicology, while others like Lawrence (2017) speak to the complexities of desire in fieldwork. These models explicitly eschew historical precedent of guarding the sexual dynamics present between participants in ethnography. Balanced with these concerns are questions of fieldwork preparation, particularly of women, who are at the greatest risk of sexual danger while in the field (Sharp and Kremer 2006). In addition to these concerns, there is a clear need for “better training of graduate students . . . on the subject of fieldwork, especially in the personal and practical aspects” (Macaulay 2011, 1-2) and greater specificity in fieldwork preparation regarding interactions and relationship-building during fieldwork with regard to gender and sexuality

The basis for the soul of Jerusalem : musical language, public performance, and competing discourses of the Israeli nation-state

Includes abstract and vita.Music constitutes a key medium through which political actors in Jerusalem embody, perform, and negotiate competing paradigms of nationhood and their visions of the future of Jerusalem. Among the Jewish population, the most intense, recent occurrences (and recurrences) of public protest tend to involve the intersection of Jerish religion, nationalist discourses, and the character of public space. My research explicates the ways in which this triangle of relationships is articulated and negotiated within the public sphere of Jerusalem by means of music, prayer, dance, and other performative modes. I interpret music as an expressive political language and a tool used by agents to make an impact on their environments. My work is situated within a growing body of scholarship on expressive culturthat aims to problematize the distinction between symbolic and instrumental action, challenging the binary opposition between the "cultural" and the "political." The symbolic, dynamic, and constructed nature of space forms an analytic base of my study. Performance in public space works to create actors' imagined idealization of the city and to stakke their claims to contested spaces. I foreground the relationality between actors of diverse populations, and argue that musical interaction is a rich space in which the cultural work of music-making is achieved. I conducted ethnological research within several spaces throughout Jerusalem and among communities with diverse musical languages. The religious right expresses itself using neo-Hasidic popular music, paralleling the liturgical and biblical rhetoric of religious Zionism. The Women of the Wall recite their prayer service out loud and communally at the Western Wall, in contradistinction to normative orthodox women's prayer. The Zionist Left exploits the repertoire of modern popular song known as "Songs of the Land of Israel," which constitute one attempt to grapple with the tensions between Jewish nationalism and secular liberalism. The Radical Left seeks a universalist political language; it protests by performing Brazilian-style samba drumming, in an attempt to transcend both Israel and Palestinian ethnicity, religion, and nationality. Several issues emerge as framing the performative expression of political actors. First, competing definitions of Zionism manifest themselves through diverse musical languages. Representative genres have come to articulate each group's position on Zionism, demonstrating the range of national imaginaries that co-exist in the public sphere. Second, gendered performance emerges as representative of the struggle between secularism and orthodoxy and the fight for religious pluralism. I analyze gendered performances and protests in terms of the production of space, their juxtaposition of gender and nationalism, and the place of these struggles within religious politics. Third, I outline several ways in which governing authorities control movement, access, and bodily practices in order to impose a particular framework of gendered behavior and how women use performance to challenge discursive norms that deliniate gendered religious practice. Fourth, I explore the discursive roles of performance in conflict. WIthin ongoing conflict within specific groups, symbolic understandings of violent acts become juxtaposed onto cultural performances that are not themselves violent, but which are intended by performers or interpreted by receivers as communicating similar symbolic messages. Thus, performance contributes to shaping the terms of conflict and becomes embedded in larger discourses of power, violence, and resistance

Virtual gurukulavasa : tradition and innovation in online Carnatic percussion pedagogy

Includes abstract and vita.The last decade has witnessed an online evolution in South Indian classical Carnatic percussion pedagogy. This dissertation examines the musical, social, and cultural dimensions of virtual music lessons in the context of Carnatic concert percussion, i.e., mridangam, ghatam, khanjira, as well as konnakol vocal percussion. The research draws from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Chennai, India with leading performer-teachers of Carnatic percussion who teach online, experiences with musicians and connoisseurs in the United States and Canada over several years, and scholarly and journalistic sources. The rise in popularity of virtual music lessons reflects three interconnected themes of globalization, diaspora, and technology. The mass migration of South Indians to the United States in the second half of the twentieth century has created an active community of supporters of Carnatic music. The South Indian diaspora expresses a desire to maintain cultural connections with the Indian homeland and Carnatic music represents an important facet of traditional South Indian culture. Second-generation Indian-Americans constitute a significant community of students who participate in online lessons. Analysis of the pedagogical music repertoire transmitted online illuminates that it is a simplified version of the performance repertoire and similar to the repertoire of taught to students in person. This repertoire reflects the ultimate goal of music performance. While some teachers utilize audio and video recordings and notation to supplement their real-time virtual lessons, many are able to transmit this musical knowledge without additional learning resources, in spite of challenges in online learning such as audio/video log. Online pedagogy thus emphasizes the continuing oral and aural nature of Carnatic percussion. Virtual interactions between Chennai teachers and Indian-American students involve a range of cross-cultural negotiations, including bilingual communication and Indian cultural codes and values such as guru bjakthi, or deep reverence for the teacher. By musically and culturally connecting to Chennai teachers, virtual music lessons reinforce the notion of Chennai as the center of Carnatic mjusic, with Chennai teachers as its authentic torchbearers. this notion challenges previous anthropological theories of globalization as a unidirectional process from the West to the rest of the world