Reverse Ethnomusicology: Migrant Musicians As Researchers

The starting point of the research project is the hypothesis that migrant musicians automatically study musical worlds that are (partially) foreign to them when they arrive in a new place. In order to find their (musical) place in their new surroundings and potentially gain a foothold, they have to ask similar questions as ethnomusicologists do in field research: What musics are there? Where are they played? Who are the central figures in the musical field? For whom is the music performed? Which music -related events take place (regularly)? How do musicians and the audience (re)act at concerts? The musicians thus develop a relevant knowledge about musics, institutions and networks in Austria and interpret it based on their previous experiences in musical contexts. This project centers and reframes migrant musicians as knowledge producers about musics in Austria, and makes their perspectives visible and accessible, which are otherwise hardly considered or ignored. While it is commonly music researchers from a privileged position who research music that is (partially) unknown to them (and thereby othering it), this project reverses the previously dominant perspective situationally and asks: How do musicians observe and interpret musical practices in Austria after their arrival? Six musician-researchers who have migrated to Austria in the last three to eight years and would like to continue their musical practice here collaborate in this project with four academic researchers (principal investigators, post-doc researcher, student assistant). The musician-researchers engage in structured research with a self-selected musical practice in Austria, which is "foreign" or "different" to them in specific aspects, or entirely. In the course of several workshops, the team develops research questions, reflects on methodological questions, discusses results, and develops strategies to make the work visible to others, within the team and beyond. In the project, the role of the ethnomusicologists is expanded and redefined in that they do not act as the sole producers of knowledge, but rather as facilitators of knowledge production in the sense of an engaged pedagogy. In addition, the research method of citizen music ethnography is tried out, in that people do research whose knowledge formation is not otherwise framed as "science" (citizen science). Hence, Reverse Ethnomusicology tests new methodological approaches and questions the common power relations in scientific knowledge production.