Geography, Music, Space

Keynote speaker: George Revill, The Open University

How does music shape diverse spaces, such as an immigration detention centre, a street performance, a military wives’ choir, or a family kitchen? Is there common ground to be found between researching the chants of a protest marcher, the beats of a commuter’s headphones and a soloist’s concert hall recital? What is the role of music in the construction of space, and vice versa? How and why do we research this?

This one-day conference will explore the relationship between space and how music is expressed, circulated and politicised to construct particular identities. It will also examine music at a non-representational level, with meaning emerging through affect and emotion, folded through a variety of embodied and spatially situated experiences. In short, it will consider the nuanced interplay between music and space.

The conference aims to bring together scholars working at the intersection of music and space, not only within the areas of musicology, ethnomusicology and geography, but also as approached from a variety of other disciplinary backgrounds (including politics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy). We especially encourage contributions from Postgraduates and Early Career Researchers.

20-minute papers addressing, but not limited to, the following themes are welcomed:

Music, materiality and space

- How is the materiality of music (a longitudinal wave; the materials that constitute a live performance; a recording on CD or mp3 file) significant in the construction of space?

- What does the material form that music takes bring to its circulation, governance and reception?

Music, the everyday and space

- How do the materialities of music (or the sonic) fold through the multiple spaces of the everyday?

- In which social contexts are music and space mutually constitutive (performance, work, leisure)?

- What does a privileging of music bring to understanding the everyday? What other actors should be considered?

Music, the body and space

- How are spatialized identities formed through embodied acts of music such as singing, playing, and performing?

- How does music play into the construction of gendered bodies?

Music, the political and space

- What role does music have within contested, highly politicised spaces?

- What new spaces for politics open up through the circulation of music?

- How can we conceptualise the politics of music beyond textual analysis?

Researching music and space

- What methodological challenges and interdisciplinary opportunities arise from researching music and space?

- What does it mean to ‘do’ geographies of music?

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to Samuel Horlor at s.p.horlor@durham.ac.uk

Deadline: 30 September 2016

Successful applicants will be notified in October. A limited number of travel bursaries will be available to Postgraduates or Early Career Researchers (those within three years of completing their PhD).