Call and Response: SEM President’s Roundtable 2016, “Ethnomusicological Responses to the Contemporary Dynamics of Migrants and Refugees”

Abstract

The privilege of organizing the SEM President’s Roundtable in 2016 and 2017 provided an opportunity to call attention to a topic that has concerned my teaching and research since graduate school. For the first iteration of “Ethnomusicological Responses to the Contemporary Dynamics of Migrants and Refugees” I convened a panel of people whose perspectives I admire. I wanted to learn from them, and I did. As someone who has been involved with Middle Eastern and more specifically Arab music and culture within my own academic and regional community, I was making new efforts in the fall of 2016 toward engaged ethnomusicology in Virginia among my own newest neighbors, and organizing this SEM President’s Roundtable gave me courage and inspiration. Our “Call and Response” presents snapshots from five colleagues who are engaged with communities of migrants and refugees in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and North America..