Queering the Field Sounding Out Ethnomusicology

by Barz, Gregory; Cheng, William

• ISBN13: 9780190458034
• ISBN10: 0190458038
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2019-10-21
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Drawing on ethnographic research and often deeply personal experiences with musical cultures, Queering the Field: Sounding out Ethnomusicology unpacks a history of sentiment that veils the treatment of queer music and identity within the field of ethnomusicology. The thematic structure of the volume reflects a deliberate cartography of queer spaces in the discipline-spaces that are strongly present due to their absence, are marked by direct sonic parameters, or are called into question by virtue of their otherness. As the first large-scale study of ethnomusicology's queer silences and queer identity politics, Queering the Field directly addresses the normativities currently at play in musical ethnography (fieldwork, analysis, performance, transcription) as well as in the practice of musical ethnographers (identification, participation, disclosure, observation, authority). While rooted in strong narrative convictions, the authors frequently adopt radicalized voices with the goal of queering a hierarchical sexual binary.
The essays in the volume present rhetorical and syntactical scenarios that challenge us to read in prescient singular ways for future queer writing and queer thought in ethnomusicology.

Author Biography

Gregory Barz is Director of the School of Music at Boston University where he is professor of ethnomusicology. He serves as the president of the Society for Ethnomusicology and currently conducts field research on drag culture in Israel.

William Cheng is an Associate Professor of Music at Dartmouth College. He teaches courses in history, media, ethics, disability, race, and digital games. Working at the crossroads of critical inquiry and public engagement, he advocates for interpersonal care as they heart of academic and activist labors. He is a founding co-editor of the new Music & Social Justice series published by University of Michigan Press.

Table of Contents

Dedication
About the Authors
Acknowledgements

1. Foreword

2. Introduction
"Queering the Field: An Introduction"

3. Framing Essay
"Sounding Out: Theoretical Reflection on Queer Fieldnotes and Performance"

4. Queer Silences
"Uncomfortable Positions: Listening and Expertise in Queer Postcolonial Ethnomusicology"
"Queer in the Field? What Happens When Neither 'Queer' Nor 'The Field' is Clearly Defined?"

5. Out/In the Field
"'I Don't Think We Are Safe Around You': Queering Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology"
"Outing the Methodological No-No: Translating Queer Space to Field Space"
"Queerness, Ambiguity, Ethnography"
"Understanding the Gay Ambiente in Cuba: Queer Fieldwork in a Queer Field"

6. Queerness in Action
"Her Tall, Slender Frame: (Con)Figuring Hijra Music and Dance Through Documentary Filmmaking"
"Queer Hip Hop or Hip-Hop Queerness? Toward a Queer of Color Music Studies"
"Going Through the Motions: Transgender Performance in Topeng Cirebon from North Java, Indonesia"
"The Unbearable Bearing of Tradition, or, A Fable of Belonging"

7. Institutions and Intersections
"The Lion, The Witch, and the Closet: Heteronormative Institutional Research and Performance Practices, and the Queering of 'Traditions'"
"'I'm not Gay, I'm Black': Exploring the Assumptions and Limitations that Underlie the Normative Queer Gaze in a Panamanian Dance-Drama"

8. Who's Queer (W)Here?
"Self and/as Subject: Respectability, Abjection, and the Alterity of Studying What You Are"
Amber R. Clifford-Napoleone, University of Central Missouri
"Straight to the Heart: Heteronormativity, Flirtation, and Autoethnography at Home and Away"
"I, Spy: Silence, Violence, and the Ethics of Virtual Ethnography"

9. Clubs, Bars, Scenes
"The Queer Concerns of Nightlife Fieldwork"
"'Eat the Other': Ethnography, Power, and Desire"
"Men Created Homophobia, God Created Transformistas: Saluting the Oríshás in a Cuban Gay Bar"
"On Serendipity: Sonic Pleasures and Fleshy Archives of Sensual Ethnography"

Works Cited
Index