Sounding Good

Like biological species and languages, many musical and other cultural practices around the world are at risk. In some cases, the threat to their future is due to social inequalities or injustices that impinge upon people's capacity to engage in vibrant cultural lives of their choosing, such as assimilation policies, systemic land dispossession, forced displacement, or erasure of certain cultures in education. In Sounding Good, author Catherine Grant joins artist-researcher collaborators from across five continents to explore the deep and sometimes surprising interplays between music, cultural sustainability, and matters of social justice.

In Cambodia, a "magic music bus" chugs through rural provinces, joyfully returning traditional music to people and places from which it has nearly disappeared. In a refugee camp in the harsh Algerian desert, people come together to sing old and new songs about everyday life in the camps, their nostalgia for their Western Saharan homeland, and their hopes for the future. In a university class in Brazil, students learn songs, dances, and stories from a senior Indigenous culture-bearer--the first time these cultural practices have been welcomed into formal tertiary education. Through these cases, and others from Vanuatu, India, and Australia, Sounding Good demonstrates how strong and sustainable cultural practices can advance the cause of social justice, and vice versa.

Traversing a range of pressing contemporary social concerns--from forced migration, educational equity, and poverty to matters of racial, cultural, and climate justice--Grant contends that music can help us better understand the ways that cultural sustainability and social justice are entangled. Not only will this understanding help musicians, communities, scholars, and cultural agencies in local and global efforts to protect and promote the rich diversity of musical practices around the world, but it will also enhance our prospects of an equitable and thriving world, now and into the future.

Collaborators:
Arn Chorn-Pond
Jose Bonifacio da Luz (Bengala)
Jose Jorge de Carvalho
Jessie Lloyd
Saurav Moni
Violeta Ruano Posada
Mohamed Sleiman Labat
Sandy Sur
Thorn Seyma