Rickwood, Julie Ann
Description
This thesis examines the convergence of the community music
movement and the reconciliation movement in Australia. It
analyses the contextualised, contested and complicated nature of
the movements as well as the expression of the convergence in
community choral events and choirs that bring together Indigenous
and non-Indigenous singers into the layered and textured lived
experienced of ‘singing in between’.
The community music movement in Australia...[Show more] reclaims music, making
it accessible to everyone. It declares the individual and social
benefits of making music, particularly with others. The
reconciliation movement prompts cross-cultural engagement,
recognition of Indigenous contributions to Australia, and, most
recently, constitutional change. It seeks, of course,
reconciliation between Australia’s Indigenous and
non-Indigenous peoples. Both these popular movements provide
opportunities for engagement in social and cultural justice. Both
movements, however, are embedded with rhetorical discourses and
threaded with notions that cloud and clutter.
As a multi-sited ethnography the thesis provides a methodological
and theoretical foundation that delivers a descriptive and
interpretative analysis of the specific and localised expressions
from case study choirs based in South East Australia, South West
Australia and Central Australia. An interdisciplinary research
project, the thesis also examines field research methodology and
the creation of intimacy and knowledge, engaging with discussions
within ethnomusicology and other disciplines about these aspects
of ethnographic research.
The thesis engages with academic research from numerous
disciplines: Ethnomusicology, Anthropology, Musicology, Popular
Music Research, Cultural Studies, Sociology, Cultural Geography,
Music Psychology, History and others. It draws on publications on
and from within Community Music, Reconciliation, Arts, and
Community Development. I incorporate the voices of the singers
through conversations, comments and communication and through the
publications and documents of choirs, choir leaders, and music
organisations, including their online presence.
In this thesis I provide a snapshot of the way in which the
community interactions explore, express and represent
reconciliation through music making, and in so doing, how they
prompt the reshaping of individual, local and national notions of
identity, community and the practice of music.
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