The blog is back, as I complete my posts for PIDP 3100 - Foundations of Adult Education!

This week, we are asked to discuss some emerging trends in our field and how they impact our teaching. For this post, I decided to reflect on an emerging sub-discipline within the field of ethnomusicology: ecomusicology. I’ve been hearing this term at conferences and in conversation with colleagues quite a bit over the past few years, so I thought I’d take a look at the website for the open access, peer-reviewed journal that has sprung up, Ecomusicology Review, and read their definition of ecomusicology. As with its parent discipline of ethnomusicology, ecomusicology is an interdisciplinary field that brings together perspectives from a number of disciplines, with a specific focus on the interactions between sound, music, nature, the environment, and culture.

Image from — IMAGE: “Sustainability and Sound: Ecomusicology Inside and Outside the Academy”, by Aaron S. Allen, Jeff Todd Titon, and Denise Von Glahn (click image to visit article)

There are a few trends that come to mind when I consider these themes. First, my colleague Dr. Joe Browning, whose PhD dissertation focused on themes of nature and environment in Japanese shakuhachi music. I was struck by Joe’s ethical decision (c. 2012) at the time to not use air travel for his fieldwork, instead conducting his research online to minimize the carbon footprint of his work. This was the first time I had heard of anyone in music academia engaging with the ethical side of air travel, fieldwork, and conference attendance. Joe was certainly ahead of his time, as several years later, the pandemic changed the landscape for academic travel quite drastically. The British Forum for Ethnomusicology, along with many other academic organizations, held their conferences online during the height of pandemic restrictions. This was a success, and facilitated the participation of many people who wouldn’t otherwise have been able to attend. Since then, the BFE has pledged to hold their annual one-day conference online every two years.

I really appreciate the move to blended online/in-person formats, and have been integrating this into my own teaching so that I can make use of the best features of both face-to-face and Zoom instruction. In addition to providing further accessibility, online formats do cut down on travel costs, both financial and environmental, making it possible for more people to attend with fewer barriers, and reducing unnecessary travel emissions for conversations that can easily be held virtually. Of course, nothing can replace in-person interaction, but there are larger environmental and equality issues to consider when we insist on doing all academic meeting and learning in the flesh. Personally, I plan to continue offering blended teaching formats for their ecological sustainability and accessibility as long as my institution remains open to it.