Ecomusicology, Music Studies, and the IASPM: Beyond “Epistemic Inertia”

Abstract

Ecomusicologists have answered Philip Tagg’s call to develop a more interdisciplinary and interprofessional “music studies.” Ecomusicologists are demonstrating an exceptional openness to theories and methodologies generated from outside their home disciplines. Of course, no single transdisciplinary conversation will solve all of the problems Philip Tagg outlines in “Caught on the Back Foot: epistemic inertia and visible music” (2011). However, ecomusicology provides evidence that a more holistic, integral, and relational music studies is possible. The chapter will outline four ecomusicological literatures as evidence: ecocritical musicology, soundscape studies, ecohistorical scholarship, and ecosystems communication approaches. Pastoral ideologies have inhibited ecological research in the past, but recent advances have helped the environmental study of music become more relational and relevant.

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