Diverse Musicological Studies

Musicology has expanded well beyond the analysis of scores and composers to examine how music functions within ecosystems, communities, and political conflicts—drawing on methods from ecology, anthropology, and digital archival science. Ecomusicology investigates the relationships between sound, environment, and human behavior, asking how music shapes and is shaped by landscapes and climate, while ethnomusicology documents and theorizes the musical practices of living cultures, often in collaboration with the communities themselves. Central open questions include how indigenous musical knowledge can be preserved and cited responsibly in digital archives without reproducing colonial patterns of extraction, and whether music-based peacebuilding initiatives produce durable social change or remain largely symbolic. Researchers are also working out what it means to treat cultural heritage as a form of sustainability—one that deserves the same institutional attention as biodiversity.

Works

203,840

Total citations

218,298

Keywords

EcomusicologyEthnomusicologyEnvironmental SustainabilityCultural ConservationMusic and PeacebuildingIndigenous Knowledge