Field to Media: Applied ecomusicology in the Anthropocene

Mark Pedelty, Rebecca Dirksen, Tara Hatfield, Yan Pang, Elja Roy

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

In seeking to respond to the environmental challenges of the Anthropocene era, our research team of five scholars, including faculty and advanced graduate students, along with each of their collaborators in their respective research sites, has come together to explore the possibilities of a methodology that we call Field to Media. Field to Media involves using video production to study and amplify ecomusical responses to climate change, pollution, deforestation, and other environmental challenges. This methodology is intended as a pragmatic process that blends participant observation with participatory action research and applied or activist engagement. Specific to this project, our efforts have involved the co-creation of five different music videos to address a range of pressing environment-related matters in USA/Canada, Tanzania, Bangladesh, China, and Haiti. In this article, we consider some of the potential successes and challenges that we have each experienced in the course of producing these music videos.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)22-42
Number of pages21
JournalPopular Music
Volume39
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 1 2020

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
1 Our work is funded by a joint Mellon Foundation and University of Illinois initiative: the Humanities without Walls consortium program titled ‘Humanities in a Changing Climate’, which is dedicated to greening the humanities in the Anthropocene. We will use the capitalised and italicised Field to Media for both the methodology and this specific project so as to avoid a confusing switch back and forth from lower to upper case.

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press.

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