Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco

Dieter Christensen

4e de couv.: The Arabian Peninsula, and in particular, the coastal areas of the Arab Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Arab Sea, boast since times immemorial a wealth of cultural forms to which the people of the desert and those of the sea and from across the seas have amply contributed. The arts - music, dance, poetry in performance - not only testify to a deep history and express diverse ethnic identities; as an integral part of daily life they are also instrumental in balancing multicultural society and adapting local communities to the effects of national and global modernization. The authors have studied, during several residences between 1985 and 2006, the state and evolution of performance practices and the social roles of performed arts in Sohar, an ancient and still important coastal town of the Sultanate of Oman. The book situates and describes the arts (al-funun) and their practitioners in the province and town of Sohar, studies the underlying concepts and the social networks through which the arts exist, and analyses the forces of change that have affected the arts as part of society in Sohar.

Music and Society in Sohar, Sultanate of Oman

Traditional Arts in Southern Arabia

John Morgan O'Connell

This volume charts a new frontier of applied ethnomusicology by highlighting the role of music in both inciting and resolving a spectrum of social and political conflicts in the contemporary world. Contributors detail how music and performance are deployed to critique power structures and to nurture cultural awareness among communities in conflict. Speaking to the cultural implications of globalization and pointing out how music can promote a shared musical heritage across borders, the essays discuss the music of Albania, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Egypt, Germany, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, North and South Korea, Uganda, the United States, and the former Yugoslavia. The volume also includes dozens of illustrations, including photos, maps, and musical scores. Contributors are Samuel Araujo, William Beeman, Stephen Blum, Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco, David Cooper, Keith Howard, Inna Naroditskaya, John Morgan O'Connell, Svanibor Pettan, Anne K. Rasmussen, Adelaida Reyes, Anthony Seeger, Jane C. Sugarman, and Britta Sweers. John Morgan O'Conell is a senior lecturer in ethnomusicology and the director of the program in ethnomusicology at Cardiff University. Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco is a professor of ethnomusicology and the director of the Institute of Ethnomusicology at New University of Lisbon, Portugal.

Music and Conflict

Beverley Diamond

For decades, ethnomusicologists across the world have considered how to effect positive change for the communities they work with when faced with challenging social, political, and environmental issues and institutional structures. The two-volume collection Transforming Ethnomusicology aims to deepen and broaden dialogues about social engagement within the discipline of ethnomusicology. Its many voices, from scholars and practitioners from diverse backgrounds and working in a variety of cultural situations, explore how ethnomusicology can transform the world by contributing to social change. Through their illuminating case studies and reflections, they at the same time transform how we understand ethnomusicology as a discipline. The second volume of Transforming Ethnomusicology provides much-needed new examinations of social and ecological concerns and centers around the recognition that colonial and environmental damages are intertwined and grounded in the failure to respect the land and its peoples. Featuring Indigenous perspectives from America, Australia, and South Africa, this volume critically engages with the question how ethnomusicologists can support marginalized communities in sustaining their musical knowledges and threatened geographies within institutional and historically-grown structures that have long worked toward their destruction. The volume ends with a radical model for change that is based on a profound rethinking of established structures of knowledge.

Political, Social & Ecological Issues

Transforming Ethnomusicology Volume II

For decades, ethnomusicologists across the world have considered how to affect positive change for the communities they work with. Through illuminating case studies and reflections by a diverse array of scholars and practitioners, Transforming Ethnomusicology aims to both expand dialogues about social engagement within ethnomusicology and, at the same time, transform how we understand ethnomusicology as a discipline. The first volume of Transforming Ethnomusicology focuses on ethical practice and collaboration, examining the power relations inherent in ethnography and offering new strategies for transforming institutions and ethnographic methods. These reflections on the broader framework of ethnomusicological practice are complemented by case studies that document activist approaches to the study of music in challenging contexts of poverty, discrimination, and other unjust systems.

Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco

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