The community music practice as cultural performance: Foundations for a community music theory of social transformation

Abstract

Abstract This article outlines a conceptual framework informed by anthropological and performance theory that allow for a deeper understanding of the connection between community music practices and processes of social transformation. By conceiving the community music practice as a cultural performance, attention is drawn to the complex relation between the meanings and relationships experienced inside the musical practice and how these affect and transform the relationships that constitute the broader social and cultural world of the participants. The discussion reveals that the relationships enacted in community music practices involving socially marginalized groups are better understood as inherently ambiguous, which challenge the idealistic perspectives often encountered in community music research.