Ethno Research

Millie

Collective engagement with the findings

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With seven research reports now complete, and awaiting publication (watch this space), our team has recently turned its focus to providing opportunities for those closest to the research to engage with its findings.

Between November 2021 and March 2022, we organized five online gatherings. They brought together members of the research team, Ethno Committee* members, and representatives from JM International.

Dr Jo Gibson facilitated the events, which aimed to offer another mode of accessing the research reports (all Ethno Committee members have had early access to the reports); to connect authors with audience; and to offer a moment of collective engagement with the big ideas contained within the report.

Each event focused on one of the reports, and included a presentation from the report authors, followed by open time for questions and group discussion.

Our team hopes that these events have supported critical engagement with the key concepts, as well as consideration of practical applications of the research, enabling it to have a positive impact on the future of the Ethno programme.

*The role of the Ethno Committee (EC) is to steer the international work of JMI’s Ethno programme. Each Ethno Gathering appoints one representative to the EC; either the person responsible for organizing the Ethno Gathering, or a representative of the local organization that is a JMI member.

Ethno Research at Dublin City University

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On 15th March 2022, Dr Sarah-Jane Gibson and Prof. Lee Higgins gave a seminar as part of Dublin City University (DCU)’s Online Music Research Seminar Series. The title of the seminar was Ethno Research: Understanding intercultural experience and exchange in folk, world and traditional music camps.

The seminar reflected on the Ethno Research process considering the interdisciplinary nature of the research project and the journey towards the project for both Lee and Sarah-Jane. The researchers also presented an overview of the team’s findings, focusing on how their research provides deeper understandings of the nuanced nature of intercultural experience and exchange through folk, world and traditional musical activities.

Ethno USA and preparing for publication

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Since the summer of 2021, our international team has achieved a huge amount, producing six final reports encompassing the theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and findings from their research into Ethno. As a collection, the reports from this phase of the research are multifaceted and rich in data, reflecting the complexity and diversity of the Ethno programme.

A number of these reports will be published in the weeks to come, and we are thrilled to be sharing such a wealth of knowledge with the Ethno community and beyond. Look out for their release here on the Ethno Research website, or e-mail Project Coordinator, Millie, on m.rawmackenzie@yorksj.ac.uk if you’d like to receive a direct notification when they are published.

Researchers on the ground

While some of the team have been focusing on the latter stages of their research, other newer members recently began theirs. We were delighted to welcome Huib Schippers to work with us on a discrete study of the very first Ethno USA gathering, which took place in October this year.

Huib attended the full gathering, the first of our researchers since March 2020 able to do so, where he observed activities and interviewed participants and artistic mentors.

Also able to attend an Ethno gathering this autumn was Gabriel Harmsen, currently undertaking an internship with the International Centre for Community Music at York St John University. Gabriel experienced Ethno Sweden 2021 (autumn edition), where he continued his research into the connections between Ethno Sweden and the Folk Musicians Against Xenophobia network.

Sharing the research

Dissemination of the research continues, with a number of recent online conference appearances by our teams based at York St John University (UK) and University of Toronto Scarborough (Canada).

  • Dr Sarah-Jane Gibson and Dr Laura Risk presented a paper, ‘Performing Intercultural Dialogue and Understanding: Ethno World’s Festival Performances’, at the Open University’s ‘Festival Cultures: Imagined Pasts, Alternative Futures’ online conference.
  • Prof. Lee Higgins presented online as part of the Guildhall School’s ResearchWorks series. His presentation, ‘Ethno Research: Understanding Youth Music Gatherings’, discussed broadly the recent findings of the three-year research project.
  • The Toronto team (Dr Roger Mantie, Dr Laura Risk, Keegan Manson-Curry, Pedro Tironi) presented a panel at the online Society for Ethnomusicology annual meeting.  Their panel was titled ‘National Melodies, Global Harmony? Identity, Agency, and Youth Cultural Production at Ethno-World Camps’.

We were also pleased that Dr Sarah-Jane Gibson and Prof. Lee Higgins had an article published in the Journal of Music, Health and Wellbeing, titled ‘The Ethno Hope Sessions: Sustaining intercultural musical exchange during the COVID-19 pandemic’.

Images: Huib Schippers

Article published in Journal of Music, Health, and Wellbeing

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We are delighted that our researchers Dr Sarah-Jane Gibson and Professor Lee Higgins have had an article published in the Journal of Music, Health, and Wellbeing. The special issue, titled ‘Musicking through Covid-19: Challenges, Adaptations, and New Practices‘, aims to capture the impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on musical contexts through 2020 – 2021.

In their article, Gibson and Higgins consider how Ethno World, a global youth music network, has sustained its practices during the COVID-19 pandemic and, in so doing, provided a mechanism that supported the wellbeing of both its artistic mentors and participants. Through an exploration of the Hope Sessions, an online teaching platform created during the lockdown period, they investigate how a recontextualized musical practice has created both challenges and opportunities for those that have worked within it.

Download the article at the link below.

The Ethno Hope Sessions: Sustaining intercultural musical exchange during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sarah-Jane Gibson and Lee Higgins, 2021.

Findings presented at Guildhall ResearchWorks

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On 4th October 2021 Principle Investigator, Professor Lee Higgins, presented ‘Ethno Research: Understanding Youth Music Gatherings’, at an online seminar held as part of the Guildhall School ResearchWorks series.  

In his presentation Professor Higgins discussed some of the recent findings of the three-year project exploring Ethno’s 30-year history. Three lines of enquiry helped shape the investigation: (1) pedagogy and professional development, (2) participant experience, and (3) reverberations (impact on people beyond the gatherings). As a collaborative team, Ethno Research has focused on the experiences people have had, with the belief that it is within the ‘stories’ of those that have engaged with Ethno, either as a participant, artistic mentor, or organizer, that the meaning of Ethno will reveal itself.

This seminar was presented in association with the Institute for Social Impact Research in the Performing Arts at Guildhall School. The Guildhall School’s ResearchWorks is a programme of events centred around the School’s research activity, bringing together staff, students and guests of international standing.

Final months of data collection

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Over the last few months our researchers have had the opportunity to hear from a huge range of people key to the Ethno programme, in individual interviews as well as focus group meetings, all conducted online.

In June, Professor Lee Higgins and Dr Sarah-Jane Gibson facilitated two focus group meetings, each attended by a select group of past and current Ethno organizers with knowledge and experience to share on the focus topic. The first focus group explored the development of the Ethno programme over the last 30 years, while the second was themed around Ethno pedagogy and professional development, taking a closer look at the pedagogical concepts associated with Ethno.

As well as a fantastic response to the Pedagogy and Professional Development survey, developed by Professor Andrea Creech and her team, 35 one-to-one interviews have taken place over recent months, across all projects, bringing the total number of interviews to just under 300. Dr Dave Camlin also led a special session with Ethno organizers in April, which invited them to capture their stories and experiences of Ethno in the SenseMaker research tool.

Our History team are continuing to add to the historical timeline, and have now moved onto an exciting new phase, with descriptive quotes from interviews being woven through the timeline, bringing it to life with real accounts of Ethno experiences. This layer of the timeline will become available to the public later in the year.

With much of the data collection now coming to a close across the Ethno Research teams, the focus of the research now turns to analysis, and our researchers are also taking opportunities to share their findings. Dr Sarah-Jane Gibson was published in Music Education Research journal, while Dr Roger Mantie and the Arts & Culture team gave a panel at the virtual North Atlantic Fiddle Convention conference on 23 June 2021.