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Exploring Song and Music among
Palestinians
First
Symposium in Jerash, Jordan
(Publish on the
website of Birzeit University,
27/3/2010)
The Department of Sociology and Anthropology at BZU, along with the Academy of
Music and Drama at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, jointly hosted a
symposium on song and music among Palestinians, in Jerash, Jordan, during 19-21
February 2010. The symposium was the first step within a three-year project, run
by the two parties, partially funded by the Swedish Research Council, which aims
to initiate a process leading to the publication of an anthology.
Nineteen people, including musicologists, anthropologists, musicians, singers
and cultural workers, participated in the symposium, which was led by the
project directors, Dr Moslih Kanaaneh from BZU's Department of Sociology and
Anthropology and Dr Stig-Magnus Thorsén from the Academy of Music and Drama in
Gothenburg. Palestinian and international scholars were represented, from BZU
(Dr Sharif Kanaana), the University of Montreal (Dr Yara El-Ghadban, Kiven
Strohm), Royal Holloway University in London (Dr Rachel Beckles Willson),
University of Chicago (Issa Boulos), University of California (Dr Sunaina
Maira), Indiana University (Dr David McDonald), Lahore University of Science
Management (Dr Magid Shihade), and the Conservatory of Music at Dublin Institute
of Technology (Dr Jennifer Sinnamon), independent writer Randa Safieh, and Janne
Louise Andersen, from Sabreen's "Project hip-hop Palestine". Palestinian
musician Ahmad Al-Khatib and singers Reem Talhami and Sanaa Moussa also
participated, as did Nader Jalal from the Palestinian Ministry of Culture and
Saher Yaseen from the Palestinian Ministry of Education.
The symposium aimed to gather potential authors for the articles which will be
included in the anthology, as well as other experts in the field who acted as
consultants, in order to propose articles and engage in a dialogue about the
issues raised. The main question which will be addressed in the anthology is
"What has music meant to people in Palestinian society during the 20th Century?"
and the scope of the project therefore includes a wide array of musical genres,
geographical areas and interpretations.
The articles proposed addressed subjects including: Political events and their
impact on the traditional music of Palestine; Palestinian Protest Song in the
Al-Aqsa Intifada; music and resistance; the Palestinian hip-hop movement in
Palestine and the Diaspora; Music, the Palestinians and the Missions of the
West; the question of Palestinian identity as told through folk songs; Grief
songs as healing rituals in Palestinian heritage; and politics and
masculinities. Three days of intensive debate were held around these issues, and
crucially, new contacts and academic partnerships were forged. Proposals and
structures were molded and developed at the symposium, and subsequently authors
will expand their proposals and research into full articles for the anthology.
A further symposium will be held in the spring of 2011, where completed articles
will be presented to the members of the network, and the project directors hope
to publish the anthology by 2012.
An important aspect of the project is the creation of a network of scholars,
initially comprised of those working on the current anthology, but later to
include a wider network of individuals working on research in the area of music
and song in Palestinian society. It is hoped that this network will continue to
grow after the end of the current project in 2012, in order to facilitate the
work of scholars in the field. A website is currently under construction in
order to ease communication between project participants and to provide
information to other interested parties.
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