Chair’s Objectives
Objectives
generate and foster new anthropological knowledge about traditional music as living heritage, with a particular focus on Africa and gender equality
demonstrate the importance of the humanities, and anthropology in particular, towards safeguarding music-related living heritage faced with dilemmas related to modernization, tourism development and other radical social changes
strengthen the impact of knowledge production and sharing to help address challenges in safeguarding and sharing intangible cultural heritage in society, including through the use of digital tools, participatory music technology and virtual networks for learning and practicing traditional music
train new generations of talented traditional music leaders within a transdisciplinary and creative framework of learning and music-making that cuts across ethnic and national barriers, allowing humanities and anthropology in particular to directly connect with science, technology, and the arts
raise public awareness about music as a living heritage and its contribution to achieving sustainable development, and about the role of youth in ensuring the continued transmission of their music-related living heritage
cooperate closely with UNESCO, other UNESCO Chairs and UNITWIN Networks on relevant programmes and activities
The active involvement of communities in safeguarding their living heritage ensures its sustainability and relevance in a rapidly changing world, ensuring that these treasured traditions endure for generations to come.
The Chair will take active part in the ongoing dialogue about music, culture and tradition, by (a) exploring systematically and analyzing critically the existing major trends in the social sciences and humanities that coincide with UNESCO’s priorities (“Africa” and “Gender Equality”) and (b) repositioning itself against the established views of music as intangible cultural heritage.
In an effort to blend creatively anthropological knowledge with artistic expertise, the Chair’s program will contribute to such discussions and debates through planning and implementing new objectives for research, teaching, academic conferences, as well as musical performances based on heritage knowledge.
Great emphasis will be given to the act and results of representing music as heritage by tracking down the politics and the ethics of representation as evidenced in the trans-local discourses of the various structures and agencies involved in the research, safeguarding and promotion of local, regional, national or international projects.
The Ethnomusicology and Cultural Anthropology Laboratory of NKUA and the Chair’s partners (universities, organizations and other relevant networks) will carry out joint research regarding the structural and cultural impediments to sharing and preserving traditional music.
Undergraduate studies in traditional music, as well as graduate and post-graduate programs in the anthropology of music at the NKUA will serve as the institutional framework for organizing seminars, symposia and conferences on musical heritage with a special focus on Europe and the Arab world.
By cultivating research contributions and collaboration across fields, the main focus of collaboration with all the stakeholders will be on understanding how structures and systems of representing and repositioning intangible cultural heritage work across domains to produce exclusion and inequality, and inclusion and equality.
Moreover, by building relationships among diverse groups and across disciplines, we purport to align our research efforts with the needs of community organizers, policymakers, and other stakeholders in the domain of music as living cultural heritage.
Community-centered collaborations will help inform our research while our scholarship will help community partners and policymakers with strategies and policy, which may increase our mutual effectiveness at many levels. This type of relationship building may move beyond just coalitions toward deeper synergy, and will be strengthened by time and interaction, and ultimately yield a greater capacity to effect change regarding intangible cultural heritage.