{"title":"Feeling to Learn: Ideologies of Race, Aurality, and Manouche Music Pedagogy in France","authors":"Siv B. Lie","doi":"10.1111/jola.12334","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article explores how music professionals promote interdiscursive oppositions between musical aurality and musical literacy to unsettle the terms of their racialization. For many French Manouches (a subgroup of Romanies/“Gypsies”), music is a source of pride, profit, and public recognition. Manouche musicians often valorize their own sensorially centered pedagogical approaches in distinction to music literacy as espoused by French schools and conservatories. In doing so, they link notions of expressivity, naturalness, and ethical behavior to their Manouche identity in contrast to White French society. They construct parallel contrasts between Black and White musicalities in the jazz world to convey their value as racialized musicians, pointing to transnational formations of race and White supremacy. Because French color-blind policy constrains speech about race and racism, advocacy for an aurally centered approach to music pedagogy becomes a way for speakers to denounce the discrimination Manouches face as racialized subjects. For these musicians, self-exoticization is a multifaceted tactic to develop a market niche, to prove themselves as good neoliberal subjects, and to disrupt the racial logics that render such alterity both an asset and a burden. Their discourse remains powerful even if, in practice, some make use of the very music-theoretical frameworks they critique.</p>","PeriodicalId":47070,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Linguistic Anthropology","volume":"32 1","pages":"139-160"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2021-11-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Linguistic Anthropology","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jola.12334","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
This article explores how music professionals promote interdiscursive oppositions between musical aurality and musical literacy to unsettle the terms of their racialization. For many French Manouches (a subgroup of Romanies/“Gypsies”), music is a source of pride, profit, and public recognition. Manouche musicians often valorize their own sensorially centered pedagogical approaches in distinction to music literacy as espoused by French schools and conservatories. In doing so, they link notions of expressivity, naturalness, and ethical behavior to their Manouche identity in contrast to White French society. They construct parallel contrasts between Black and White musicalities in the jazz world to convey their value as racialized musicians, pointing to transnational formations of race and White supremacy. Because French color-blind policy constrains speech about race and racism, advocacy for an aurally centered approach to music pedagogy becomes a way for speakers to denounce the discrimination Manouches face as racialized subjects. For these musicians, self-exoticization is a multifaceted tactic to develop a market niche, to prove themselves as good neoliberal subjects, and to disrupt the racial logics that render such alterity both an asset and a burden. Their discourse remains powerful even if, in practice, some make use of the very music-theoretical frameworks they critique.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Linguistic Anthropology explores the many ways in which language shapes social life. Published with the journal"s pages are articles on the anthropological study of language, including analysis of discourse, language in society, language and cognition, and language acquisition of socialization. The Journal of Linguistic Anthropology is published semiannually.