Music in Culture, Music as Culture, Music Interculturally: Reflections on the Development and Challenges of Ethnomusicological Research in Australia

Authors

  • Sally Treloyn The University of Melbourne

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15845/voices.v16i2.877

Keywords:

music research, ethnomusicology, music as culture, intercultural research

Abstract

This article provides an account of the response to the modern postcolonial prerogative in intercultural music research from a particular perspective and field: that of a non-Indigenous Australian ethnomusicologist (the author) who conducts research on Indigenous Australian musical traditions with Indigenous cultural performers and stakeholders. The article outlines histories and legacies of ethnomusicological research in Australia centred on its grapplings with the role of musical analysis in the task of understanding music in and as culture. It then provides an account of a new postcolonial discourse of interculturalism in the study of music as culture as it manifests in applied ethnomusicologies that are centred on recording and repatriation. The aim of this is to trace a path from consideration of challenges of the study of music as culture in ethnomusicology, towards a transdisciplinary postcolonial discourse that is applicable to all research concerned with music and contemporary human societies.

Author Biography

Sally Treloyn, The University of Melbourne

Sally Treloyn is a Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology and Intercultural Research and Australian Research Council Future Fellow at the University of Melbourne.Treloyn’s specialism is the public song traditions of the Kimberley and Pilbara regions of Western Australia and her research focuses on issues of music endangerment, resilience and sustainability, repatriation as strategy for revitalisation, and collaboration and ethics.

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Published

2016-06-27

How to Cite

Treloyn, S. (2016). Music in Culture, Music as Culture, Music Interculturally: Reflections on the Development and Challenges of Ethnomusicological Research in Australia. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 16(2). https://doi.org/10.15845/voices.v16i2.877