Guest Editor’s Column

Reflections on Music and Minorities

Abstract

The theme of this issue of Puls is music and minorities. Three words, a perspective, and a field of research. The first word states the field’s raison d’etre, its empirical research focus, aim and objective. The last sets the starting point that serves to place the field within specific social and cultural geographies and to populate it with a certain kind of research objects. And in the middle that little connecting word that establishes the productive intersection that makes the field meaningful. It is this ‘and’ that sets up and signals a relation to be explored, about expressive forms and certain types of groups, about power, visibility, recognition, cultural complexity and more. The articles are based on presentations at the 11th Symposium of the ICTM Study Group of Music and Minorities, held in Uppsala, Sweden, 25–29 October 2021. After being postponed due to the Covid pandemic some 50 ethnomusicologists from 19 countries in four continents gathered, onsite and online, to discuss themes like music of minorities as national cultural heritage, ecological issues on music and minorities, new research, theory and method. All the articles discuss the roles and functions of music for groups that position themselves or are positioned as minorities in some respect, either the emphasis is on how music helps to establish, shape and gather, or to express, manifest, symbolise and represent such groups.