Participatory music-making and well-being within immigrant cultural practice: exploratory case studies in South East Queensland, Australia

ABSTRACT

Music participation is a way of life for many cultures and is an activity that is often passed on generationally. It can become especially important as a leisure activity for maintenance of self- and national identity for people who have migrated to countries of contrasting cultures, such as Australia. This article describes exploratory, qualitative research into the ways in which participatory music-making within communities from immigrant backgrounds in Brisbane, Australia may influence aspects of participants’ wellbeing. The sample for this research included three broadly-defined cultural groups living in the region: people of Baltic origin; people from Latin American and Caribbean backgrounds; and ‘newly arrived’ immigrants and refugees. Interviews with individuals have been analysed to explore the ways in which this involvement might affect mental, social, and emotional wellbeing. Our qualitative analyses demonstrated that beyond these aspects, factors of subjective wellbeing, both hedonic and eudaimonic, were apparent. This article aims to provoke discussions on the divergent ways in which immigrant communities utilise music-making practices to foster different types of wellbeing and the importance of maintaining diversity through cultural practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Music participation
• wellbeing
• refugees
• immigrants
• community music

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by a [Name of University] Research Centre Seeding Grant.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Melissa Cain

Dr. Melissa Cain is a lecturer in the School of Education, Australian Catholic University, Brisbane. She has been a school teacher and head of department for 22 years in Australia and Asia and has been teaching at the Higher Education level for the past six years. Melissa’s PhD centred on the challenges teachers face when implementing culturally diverse Arts education and covered a range of case studies in Australia and Singapore, and her research covers four main areas: Initial Teacher education, Inclusive Arts Education, Creative Pedagogies, and Assessment and Curriculum. Melissa has been a project manager for three large-scale national Learning and Teaching projects and has produced an international MOOC - Deep Learning for Transformative Pedagogies - through EdX and Microsoft.

Lauren Istvandity

Dr. Lauren Istvandity is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Brisbane, where her interests lie in the fields of music heritage, memory studies, and wellbeing. She was the recipient of the prestigious John Oxley Library Fellowship 2017 from the State Library of Queensland and is currently conducting research with local jazz communities to recover and preserve significant music heritage. She is the co-editor of the Routledge Companion to Popular Music History and Heritage (2018) and her monograph The Lifetime Soundtrack: Music and Autobiographical Memory is due for release in late 2018.

Ali Lakhani

Dr. Ali Lakhani is a Research Fellow within The Hopkins Centre: Research for Rehabilitation and Resilience at Griffith University. His research focuses on (1) self-directed policy for people with disability (2) culturally appropriate research methods and (3) arts participation and health and wellbeing. He has previously worked under a project investigating how people with complex health conditions intend to organise their health and social supports under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Additionally, as a senior research assistant, he worked on a project that investigated the relationship between music participation and the health and wellbeing and quality of life of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people residing in the Northern Territory.