Sounding Conflict: From Resistance to Reconciliation

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This project investigates the effects of music, sound and storytelling in conflict and post-conflict communities and their distribution through digital media activities. Comparative case studies in the Middle East, Brazil and Northern Ireland serve as a basis for evaluating how sound is used to articulate experiences of violence, to support narratives of resistance and to promote peace building. Together with community partners, an interdisciplinary team from the arts, humanities and social sciences will bring together complementary methodologies to address critical questions in conflict research, music and the arts. We will consider common patterns of response and engagement across different conflict settings and identify how participatory music, sound art and performance can influence political agendas and feed into policy-making. The conceptual frameworks of resistance, intervention and reconciliation highlight specific conflict conditions through which we analyse the effects of sound art activities on community participants and interpret their conflict narratives. This research also addresses a constantly evolving global security environment in which music and the arts are increasingly being recognized as a means of healing or an arena for shared dialogue. However, there is still a gap in scholarship in addressing exactly how participatory and community-led approaches to music, sound and storytelling are being used to mediate and articulate the politics of conflict for wider policy outcomes. The project is organized into three Work Streams (WS) to allow for fieldwork-based case studies and cross-cutting sound and ethnographic research methods. WS1, 'Sounding Resistance', considers a) the impact of rap and the effect of counter-narratives to ISIS and b) the transformations generated by digital storytelling interventions among Syrian refugees through the work of the Al Salam School on the Turkish-Syrian border. WS2, 'Sound Interventions in Peacebuilding', is conducted through revisiting a participatory sound art project in the Maré favela in Rio de Janeiro during military occupation in 2014 and then evolving its methodologies within a new sound art installation focusing on music interventions in Northern Ireland, finally re-exhibiting the new installation in Rio. WS3, 'Sounding Reconciliation', analyses the effectiveness of a) participatory music-making techniques and social media practices employed by the NGO, Musicians Without Borders in both Palestine and NI, and the impact of b) storytelling and performance methods in theatre on audiences and directors in the wake of the NI Good Friday Agreement (1998). Each work stream focuses on a particular music, sound and storytelling practice situated within three regions of the globe impacted by distinct conflict and post-conflict conditions. Local analysis and ethnographies will provide qualitative and quantitative insights into the effectiveness of the various projects, while comparative research will allow us to draw parallels, highlight differences and identify common patterns of responses to conflict. The research is conducted in partnership with organizations that play significant roles in establishing music and arts activities in three conflict regions (i.e. Al Salam school, Turkey, Museu da Maré, Brazil, Musicians without Borders [Palestine and NI] and four theatres [NI]. These partnerships are fundamental for engaging with existing local knowledge and best practices while ensuring the research reaches audiences beyond academia. The research will produce important insights for arts organisations seeking to understand the importance of digital media as they address the effects and legacies of violence, and for policy makers in appraising how music, sound and storytelling play a role in narratives of resistance, as well as in processes of transformation and reconciliation.