Introduction
1) Demographics provide the easiest demonstration of the need for decolonizing US ethnomusicology. SEM's 2014 membership survey shows that 3/4 are US citizens; of the US citizens, 3/4 are "Euro-American" (using the terminology in the survey). Of the 1/4 international members, 7 of the 9 countries with most members are European/Australasian (the other two are Japan and South Korea), which suggests that about 3/4 of the international members are European/Australasian. This suggests that overall, SEM membership is about 25% people of color. In contrast, the percentage of members conducting research in areas where people of color live are: Africa (35%), Latin America (41%), Asia (73%). (Members may choose several research areas.) If you add up the total percentages for all research areas, this comes to 268.6% (because you can choose more than one area). The numbers for Africa, Latin America, and Asia alone add up to 150.1%, more than half of 268.6% (without including 63.8% for US, of which a huge chunk of research is focused on minority musics). Comparing the proportion of people of color (c. 25%) relative to proportion of research in the various regions of the world (>50%), SEM has a diversity problem. The diversity problem is likely worse among SEM members who are tenure faculty, since the proportion of people of color is higher among students. Ethnomusicology faculty and students should be comprised mostly of minority and global peoples, since ethnomusicology seeks to understand minority and global musics. There should be a minority-majority composition in ethnomusicology faculty, students, and societies.
2) Following Mignolo, decoloniality counters coloniality, imperialism, modernity, capitalism, ecology, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism. This proposal includes changes to decolonize ethnomusicology in relation to demographics, epistemic issues, multiplicity of decolonial contexts, otherings, methodology, academic norms and societies, conferences, publications, and individual agency. Not all aspects of decoloniality are addressed; emphasis is put on issues of coloniality, identity/othering, racism, access, agency, and ethnomusicologists's positionality.
Epistemic Issues
3) Decoloniality varies according to context, which means there is a need to recognize that structures of sonic/musical empire and systemic racism differ. For US minorities, this ranges from embodied sonic/vocal stereotyping and violence (see William Cheng 2018), to “blacksound” in popular music (see Matthew Morrison 2019), and—within US university music programs—Western art music. Outside the US, there is e.g. the position of Uyghur music within the Chinese conservatory system (Chuen-Fung Wong 2009). Much needs to be written about minority and global musics in this regard; the long-term ethnomusicological agenda (for the coming years and decades) should include the project of examining empire and systemic racism in their full complexity. The complexity of these systems can be seen in e.g. black and brown performers, conductors, and composers of Western music in US, and other global peoples who appropriate and recontextualize Western music for their own ends. US ethnomusicology needs to recognize its existing form of decoloniality, focused on resisting Western music, as being specific to the professional contexts of US ethnomusicologists, most of whom work in music departments focused on Western music. Latin America, where there is continuing US imperialism and political interventions on behalf of US capitalism, is a different context from East Asia, where there is a history of intra-regional coloniality intertwined with Western cultural imperialism.
4) US ethnomusicology needs to disassociate from the Eurocentric musical map structured as: Western-self, minority/global-other. This is an apparently “diversified” musical map (with token global musics and ethnomusicology courses within largely Western-focused music programs) that is really the hoary Eurocentric conception of the musical world. The negative effects of this map are several. It can:
a. reproduce structures of inequities if diversity in the music curriculum is not matched with diversity in the faculty.
b. lead to dissociation from “minority/global other,” which can result in deadly othering and stereotyping of minority (see references above) and global peoples
c. lead to dissociation from “Western self,” indexed as oppressive, thereby directing attention away from one's own insider status to empire and systemic racism. Focusing on resisting Western music should not distract from addressing coloniality within the discipline of ethnomusicology that one participates in.
d. disguise the universal presence of some combination of racism, classicism, sexism, homophobia, and ableism, which are not unique to the “Western self.”
5) Ethnographic methodologies and conceptual frameworks such as insider/outsider (while indisputably valuable) stem partly from the origins of ethnomusicology in the asymmetrical global access that continues to be provided in the present day by colonialist-imperialist enterprises of the past (and present). “Native” researchers, who enter the discipline of ethnomusicology with a relatively high level of cultural fluency in the musics written about (there is no such thing as absolute insider status), rightly have their own approaches (which may incorporate—using examples from music research in China—study of ancient classical Chinese texts on music, theory and analysis of traditional music, history of Chinese music theory, archaeology etc.). Rather than arguing that ethnomusicology is defined by ethnography, consider how this marginalizes researchers on minority/global musics (which constitutes >50% of ethnomusicological research) who pursue hybrid methodologies and do not exclusively practice ethnography.
6) Considering the positionality of knowledge production from a decolonial perspective, there is a need to prioritize the voices of ethnomusicologists whose cultures are being studied and the voices of ethnomusicologists who are disadvantaged by race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability.
7) The norms of academia stand in the way of equity. US ethnomusicology should:
a. reject the notion that "ethnomusicology" is solely the pursuit of ethnomusicological theory or some definition of intellectual distinction beyond the usual academic conventions.
b. embrace the notion that the primary purpose of ethnomusicology is to work towards the goals of diversity and equity through music, as reflected in the composition of faculty, students, and the membership and leadership of SEM. Ethnomusicology is fundamentally a discipline which seeks to understand all musical cultures, which should be explained by the peoples of every musical culture.
c. The status of ethnomusicology as an academic pursuit is itself a problem. This pursuit is only available to those with access, and there are many differentials in terms of access to education, time, and economic resources. Generally, the people of the musical cultures studied in ethnomusicology tend to have less access to everything. Give minority and global peoples the doctoral funding and jobs necessary to decolonize ethnomusicology.
Institutions and Individuals
8) Broadly conceived, ethnomusicological institutions include academic societies, conferences, journals, universities, university presses, and the languages used for publications and conferences.
9) Against the current demographics of US ethnomusicology outlined in point 1 (c. 25% people of color, versus over 50% research in minority/global musics), there should be an initial target of 35% people of color among ethnomusicology faculty, students, and societies (including both membership and leadership), an increase of about 10% from the 2014 level—with a long-term target of >50% people of color. To achieve that, the following are necessary:
a. Elect minority and global members to boards of ethnomusicology societies, and actively recruit minority and global members.
b. advocate for university job search committees to adopt racial/ethnic/global diversity as one of the key criteria, alongside research, teaching, and service; and, admit a majority of minority and global peoples to doctoral programs in ethnomusicology. The university is an institution of empire and systemic racism. It has cultivated research in eugenics, area studies directed towards imperialist state interventions, and Eurocentrism, especially in disciplines which are focused on global culture, but fail to provide access to people of color.
10) Improve access to conferences.
a. SEM 2020 is going to be held online, potentially changing the future conference format, by raising the prospect of having integrated online and in-person presentations. This will be a positive move for especially minority/global members who may not have the resources to attend conferences in person. There is an opportunity to think about expanding minority/global access to SEM. This will improve access for people with disabilities.
b. The exclusive use of English in US ethnomusicological conferences and publications is a barrier to access. Accept contributions in other languages.
11) Asymmetries of access to doctoral education, faculty jobs, and English language skills have resulted in the dominance of some voices over others in ethnomusicological publications. Authorship can be diversified in the following ways:
a. establish new norms and new criteria in peer review, elevating younger and diverse scholars.
b. work with publishers to establish new norms which can be enforced through peer review, elevating younger and diverse scholars. Part of the problem lies with the commercial nature of publishers, which may prefer well-known authors for monographs and edited volumes.
c. co-authorship across various structures of power asymmetry. Ethnomusicology books and journals may require co-authorship. Anyone with some measure of privilege should pursue co-authorship. This may include (using examples I am more familiar with):
i. all authors from US, Europe, and Australasia,
ii. authors from high-income countries like Singapore,
iii. authors who are the majority ethnicity in countries like South Korea or Japan,
iv. authors who are professors in any country, regardless of majority/minority status, e.g. Tibetan professors in China, who work on Tibetan music.
d. consider “non-academic” publications such as blog posts or program notes, co-authored with the peoples written about, in job searches and promotions.
e. consider other forms of collaboration with the peoples written about—performance, educational, and curatorial work, and general public ethnomusicology—as “publications.”
12) Individuals are not powerless. As teachers, researchers, search committee members, and peer reviewers—as editors, department heads, school of music presidents—there are norms which ethnomusicologists, as individuals and in our leadership capacities, can implement officially and unofficially to amplify both the number and voice of people of color. Most ethnomusicologists are both insiders trying to survive as individuals within existing systems of empire and systemic racism and outsiders trying to dismantle these systems. As such, ethnomusicologists should recognize and articulate our participation in institutions of privilege while committing to changes within our individual or leadership capacity.
