"We are Australian": An Ethnographic Investigation of the convergence of community music and reconciliation

Abstract

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 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.