This key roundtable aims to explore ethnomusicologists’ visions for the future of minority studies within ethnomusicology and beyond. The participants are present and former members of MMRC’s Advisory Board from different parts of the world. As such, they have witnessed the evolution of the MMRC and are experts in minority studies across a wide range of socio-political settings. The roundtable draws on this expertise to gain insights into different areas of research and regions of the world that may contribute to the future development of minority studies at the MMRC. Topics to be discussed address political, methodological and theoretical issues in order to evaluate MMRC’s work to date and envision future directions. We plan to raise the following questions:

As minority studies are framed as engaged research, how can we respond to current political developments that threaten not only minorities, but also democracy as a whole? What do existing examples of applied ethnomusicology suggest about the outcomes for particular groups?

How are minority studies framed in the participants’ specific areas of expertise (subjects, methodologies, theoretical frameworks) and how do these framings correspond with the contemporary aims of the MMRC? In this context, it is important to consider how “minority” is defined in specific countries or regions by  governments, minority groups or NGOs. Do these definitions sit comfortably or are they controversial in different contexts? 

Given that migration-related ethnomusicology has been highly influential in reshaping the discipline over recent decades, we seek to exchange views on how minority research at the MMRC and elsewhere can highlight the significance of migration for ethnographic music and dance research more broadly. Global modernity often conflates ethnicity and citizenship. How can we also ensure that minority studies remain consistently intersectional?

Within an interdisciplinary context, we discuss how music and minorities studies contribute to broader cross-disciplinary discourses on marginalization, particularly those related to racism and coloniality, and consider how MMRC's work and the larger field of ethnomusicological minority studies might gain significance and visibility beyond disciplinary confines. 
 

Speakers:

Georgia Curran has a research focus on Indigenous Australian music, musical and social change, and revitalisation of minority performance arts. She is a senior research fellow at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and Chair of the ICTMD’s Study Group on Music and Dance of Oceania. She co-hosts the podcast series Music!Dance!Culture!

Marko Kölbl, Assistant Professor, chair of mdw’s Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology. He researches music/dance relating to minorities and migration as well as gender and sexuality, singer of traditional Burgenland-Croatian music. Extensive international fieldwork, particularly with the Croatian minority in Burgenland and on Afghan music in exile.

Mayco A. Santaella is Professor and Dean for the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sunway University. He studied at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa as an East-West Center Fellow researching music and dance traditions of the extended Sulu Zone (east Malaysia, southern Philippines, and eastern Indonesia) and its links to the Nusantara region. He conducted research for his doctoral studies in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, as a Fulbright research grant recipient. His books include Made in Nusantara: Studies in Popular Music (Routledge, 2021), Popular Music in East and Southeast Asia: Sonic (under)Currents and Currencies (Sunway University Press, 2022), Performing Arts and the Royal Courts of Southeast Asia (Brill, 2023 & 2024), and The Sulu Zone: A Maritime Cultural Complex (Sunway University Press, 2024).

Svanibor Pettan, who was until his recent retirement Professor and Chair in Ethnomusicology at the University of Ljubljana, is currently involved in a research project titled Romani Musicians in Slovenia: Social Status, Cultural Practices, and Interractions, and in emerging research initiatives in his new country of residence, Sri Lanka. As Chair of Study Groups, Secretary General, and President of the ICTMD, he was in a position to gain and negotiate diverse and dynamic disciplinary perspectives on music and minorities and applied ethnomusicology world-wide. 

Deborah Wong is Professor Emerita of ethnomusicology at the University of California, Riverside. She researches Asian American community-based performance and non-profit arts in the public sector. Her happiest hours of the week are spent going on air with her weekly radio show Gold Mountain for KUCR 88.3 FM in Riverside.

Chair:

Ursula Hemetek is an ethnomusicologist and the founder and director of the Music and Minorities Research Centre at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She served in diverse leading roles, for example as the Secretary General of the ICTMD (International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance). Her main areas of research were and are music of minorities in Austria, in particular Roma, Burgenland Croats, immigration and forced migration. In 2018 she was awarded with the Wittgenstein Prize.