On Flogging the Dead Horse, Again: Historicity, Genealogy, and Objectivity in Richard Waterman’s Approach to Music

Abstract

Abstract In a critical appraisal and expansion of the historical methodology championed by ethnomusicologist and anthropologist Richard Waterman, this essay reconsiders the historicity of musical performance and demonstrates ways in which treating ethnography genealogically may serve as a means of doing what Thomas Solomon calls "postcolonial music history." This essay is broadly divided into three parts: a review of Waterman’s work, a theoretical revamping and an abbreviated case study taken from my own research on Catholic patron saint rituals in Bahia, Brazil.

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