South African musicology in terms of the sociology of knowledge

Abstract

Abstract Musicology as pursued in the majority of South African university music departments suffers a conceptual deficit concerning the nature and enterprise of current international musicology and the academic needs in a country seeking cross-cultural understanding. This deficit is shown to be socially determined through the symbolic universe construed partly by colonialism, partly by the policies of separate development and defensive cultural isolationism, partly by a Eurocentrism based on a narrow definition of art, and partly by the positivistic character of traditional musicology. It is shown that, in terms of the sociology of knowledge, these factors relate to each other through an elective affinity, resulting in a restriction of the knowledge horizon which largely obscures the several disciplines within systematic musicology and ethnomusicology. It is pointed out that the social determination of the conceptual deficit need not be consciously perceived, because social structures may be accepted unq...