‘Say You’re a Nyungarmusicologist’: Indigenous Research and Endangered Song

Abstract

Based on my work as an Aboriginal Australian researcher studying song traditions in the Southwest of Western Australia, this article interrogates notions of ‘native’ music researchers and distinctly Indigenous approaches to research. An Indigenous scholar’s identity, acceptance, and the advantages or constraints they experience are subject to constant negotiation as they attempt to balance responsibilities to the academic and Indigenous communities they belong to. In light of these responsibilities, Indigenous music researchers may be motivated to nourish their own, thus far under-researched, local music traditions, serving to increase the diversity of music studied and sustained worldwide.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank members of the Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories Project for instigating and encouraging this research. Some of the fieldwork described here was carried out with the support of the inaugural Eileen and Aubrey Wild Music Research Travel Scholarship (University of Western Australia).

Notes

¹ The Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories Project is an Aboriginal community-instigated language and cultural heritage maintenance organization with over 80 members, mostly based in the Albany region of Western Australia. See http://wirlomin.com.au.

² The paucity of published information about music from the Southwest of Western Australia is evidenced by the complete omission of the region in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Sadie and Tyrell 2001).

³ Adler (1885) also provided the term ‘vergleichende Musikwissenschaft’ (comparative musicology) as a synonym for ‘Musikologie’.

⁴ This may include any of the world’s Indigenous peoples; for example, Native American, Ainu, Maori, and Australian Aboriginal.

⁵ The Mirning are group of Aboriginal people from the coastal region of the Great Australian Bight in the Southwest of South Australia and bordering Western Australia.

⁶ After the British established the Swan River colony at Perth, Western Australia in 1829, colonial authority extended over the whole southwest by 1893, with the proclamation of the Esperance town site.

⁷ Essentially, ‘What can we know about music, and how can we know it?’ (Titon 2008, 25).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Clint Bracknell

Clint Bracknell is a Nyungar from the south coast of Western Australia and Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney. His research explores links between song and language, emerging technologies, and Indigenous creative futures. A musician and composer, he was nominated for ‘Best Original Score’ in the 2012 Helpmann Awards. His Nyungar cultural elders use the term ‘Wirlomin’ to refer to their clan. Email: [email protected]