Response to Challenge Question: Bryan's second question

Titon outlines the three main critiques of Ethnomusicology, which are that it is grounded in asymmetries of power, that fieldwork narratives play out as heroic quest stories, and that any account grounded in individual experience is basically fiction. All three of these critiques are valid, and certainly serve as a productive way to begin thinking about approaches to fieldwork and ethnographic writing. While transcending these issues altogether may be impossible, there are certain measures one can take in the reflexive process to minimize each issue in practice.

The idea of asymmetries of power stems from the fact that an Ethnomusicologist is exerting her power over a culture and deciding she has a right to represent a culture, especially because, as Titon mentions, she has interests in her career in mind. To the idea of motivation based on career interests, I would argue that because the field of Ethnomusicology presents so many challenges, criticisms, and ethical issues, only someone truly passionate about all kinds of music and learning would go into the field in the first place. Many ethnographies end up endorsing a culture or the music of a culture, and while this is still biased, it at least demonstrates that the Ethnomusicologist either entered his fieldwork with a predisposed interest in the music or culture, or that he gained interest and passion through learning. In terms of the idea that the Ethnomusicologist should not have a right to represent a culture over the members of the culture itself, I argue that a good Ethnomusicologist would be trained or practiced in how to approach fieldwork and write an ethnography in such a way that is clear to and effective for a specific audience. While an individual member of a culture certainly has a right to represent the culture, the individual might not know how to look outside of what he has always known, and may not know how to communicate what is so familiar. Ethnomusicologists serve as translators, and even translators cannot always translate word for word as some aspects of one language have no translation in another. The question is, which is better, to have an outsider represent a culture, or to have no representation at all? Ultimately, the answer to this should be up to the members of the musical culture, and while their own abilities to represent themselves should not be overlooked, it should be accepted if they are comfortable having an outsider represent them.

In terms of the issue of the “heroic quest,” there is definitely a balance that must be achieved. In order to achieve balance between the extremes of heroic quest and pretension of objectivity due to lack of reflexivity, one could perhaps dedicate certain sections of an ethnography to personal experience and certain sections to factual or general information learned. The Ethnomusicologist could also focus on the specific stories of individuals, such as those we viewed in the documentary of Sacred Harp singing. This method both acknowledges the subjectivity of the experiences of the Ethnomusicologist, and places importance on the experiences of members of the culture or community.

The idea that an account of individual experience is fiction is difficult to approach. There is no way to avoid this completely, but there are ways to focus on more tangible information. First, an Ethnomusicologist should spend as much time in her studied environment as possible. This way, she can determine common themes, patterns, and ideas that characterize the music culture rather than assuming something she saw once was significant, or dismissing an occurrence as unimportant. Also, she should incorporate the views of the people in the group regarding what is characteristic of the culture. Just as Handler and Linnekin describe, a tradition should be considered on the terms of the participants, so there is immeasurable value in the participant’s views of his own musical culture. Here again, the Ethnomusicologist should interview as many different participants as possible so as to find common threads and rather than simply make grand assumptions about the entire music culture based on an individual’s account.

Overall, only a superhuman could transcend these three critiques completely, but one can certainly minimize their effect by consciously acknowledging them and actively planning how to overcome them.