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GIEEMP Seminar | The music ecosystem versus the music doughnut: a comparison of two concepts for envisioning the future of music during the climate crisis
PERMANENT SEMINAR OF THE RESEARCH GROUP ON ETHNOMUSICOLOGY AND STUDIES IN POPULAR MUSIC
2024-02-21 | 3 p.m. | NOVA FCSH, Colégio Almada Negreiros, Campolide (Lisbon) | Room 208 - Floor 2 | Zoom Room
Free entrance, both in presence and online:
Zoom Room
Meeting ID: 359 090 5798
Pass code: 295344
The music ecosystem versus the music doughnut: a comparison of two concepts for envisioning the future of music during the climate crisis
Matt Brennan | University of Glasgow
This talk falls into three parts. First, I provide an overview of how the term ‘music ecosystem’ has gained increasing prevalence over the past decade across a range of communities, including the music industries, state-funded bodies and policymakers, and the academy. I outline the ideology underpinning music ecosystems as they are currently conceived, and contrast this against their dependence upon a biosphere which is under threat of collapse (Bradshaw et al 2021). Second, I propose that existing definitions of ‘music ecosystem’ could be constructively informed by Raworth’s (2012) concept of doughnut economics. A potentially valuable (though not the only) definition of ‘music ecosystem’ could therefore be ‘a sustainable system for musical life that contributes to a social foundation of well-being that no one should fall below, while respecting the ecological ceiling of planetary pressure that we should not go beyond. A sustainable music ecosystem operates between the limits of the aforementioned foundation and ceiling – a safe and just musical space for all.’ Third, I consider how the concepts of the music ecosystem and the music doughnut apply to two case studies in the city of Glasgow: Music Broth and TRNSMT Festival.
Matt Brennan | Professor of Popular Music and Convenor of the MSc Music Industries at the University of Glasgow. He has served as Chair of the UK and Ireland branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM), and has authored and edited several books in the field of popular music studies. His latest book, Kick It: A Social History of the Drum Kit (Oxford University Press) was named one of the "best music books of 2020" by the Financial Times, and his previous monograph, When Genres Collide (Bloomsbury), was named as one of Pitchfork’s “Favourite Music Books of 2017”. In 2018 he led the UK Live Music Census, the first nationwide census of its kind in the world. He is currently researching environmental sustainability strategies for music cities, using Glasgow as a case study.
