“Cutting across the map”: toward an ecology of knowledge applied to the study of ethnomusicology in south Atlantic

Abstract

Throughout several centuries, people and cultures from the Iberian Peninsula, Africa, South America and the Caribbean have circulated within the South Atlantic region. From the first attempts at ocean navigation up to the age of cyber network communication, human diasporas and the associated expressive behavior were influenced by ideological environments, geopolitical strategies and technological developments. Music and dance accompanied their practitioners crossing the Atlantic sea in both directions promoting new sound encounters and a particular sonic and ecological landscape. Since the late 19th century, on both sides of the ocean, ethnomusicology, and other social sciences and humanities, have attempted to describe, analyze and interpret the repercussions of those transatlantic transits, and their testimonies expressed in music and dance. However ethnomusicologists who were with the study of these processes have rarely contrasted the epistemologies and the theoretical and methodological frameworks that local ethnomusicologists use to deal with music and dance in transit. The purpose of this paper is to suggest, based on the analyses of different kind of approaches applied to music, a dialogue between ethnomusicologists from the Iberian Peninsula, Africa, and South America in order to (1) discuss local developments of ethnomusicological thought and interests, (2) acknowledge the influence of local history and economy on those developments, (3) consider the influence of the academic mainstream on local ethnomusicologies, (4) recognize local theoretical approaches developed on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, (5) understand local strategies of knowledge validation and the definition of the contexts and priorities of the subjects studied.