Musicological ethnography and peacebuilding

Abstract

Based on my PhD research with an inter-religious choir in Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina, this paper discusses my interdisciplinary methodologies and suggests how this approach might be applied to future peacebuilding efforts. The use of ethnographic methods in research is an attempt to comprehend a social scene in a way that is as close as possible to the understanding of those within the scene. Normally, the data collected is linguistic in nature, although the visual and gestural, embodied data are increasingly included. There is very little consideration of the aural in this form of research. Even when the audio is considered, it is often described in written language rather than considered it to be data in and of itself, thereby creating a translation issue. In my own research in Sarajevo, I have made the case for sound and music as ethnographic data, since it is a means of experiencing and expressing tacit cultural understanding within and without a particular social group. This paper examines the commonalities between this approach and the peacebuilding strategies of Lederach et al. (http://www.beyondintractability.org/) and proposes how musicological ethnography might be useful as a tool for increased intercultural understanding in peacebuilding activities.

Keywords:

• Music
• peacebuilding
• inter-religious
• ethnography
• ethnographic data
• musicological understanding
• Bosnia Herzegovina

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Appropriate here is determined and expressed by the participants. It is group-subjective and fluid.

2. Conflict transformation here is defined as an orientation, approach, and framework for developing a strategic approach to conflict. For further information, refer to John Paul Lederach's excellent introduction on the subject (http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/transformation).

3. It should be noted that Islamic ilahija, Islamic religious songs from the Balkans, were not liturgical, and were influenced by and influenced the Bosnian folk music, sevdalinka. The Islamic traditional is very noticeable in both through the musical material itself. See Petrovic 1988 for more information on the Islamic influence on Bosnian music.

4. This was not an applied ethnomusicological undertaking, as described by Pettan 2010, since the research site did not explicitly contain minority and majority groups as per se, but this musical ethnographic approach could be used in applied ethnomusicological work in the future.