The Practice Of Ethnomusicology In Non-western Countries Is Unethical

If we are to break down the Latin origin of the word Ethnomusicology , it simply means the study of music from nations. Boyd s definition of ethnomusicology refers to the study of all music outside Western music (Boyd 1972, p863). The latter meaning implies that ethnomusicology is carried out from Europe/West to non-Western countries, but not vice versa This definition is much more accurate to the reality, since ethnomusicology has almost exclusively been practiced by Western ethnomusicologists. In any research field where primary research is carried out, ethical codes of conduction have to be implemented in order to help avoid issues around potential disrespect or exploitation of the participants. I will firstly argue that the practice of ethnomusicology is unethical The focus will be on one aspect of unethical practice in research, which is participant exploitation. In order to minimise issues around the unethical practice of ethnomusicology, Aubert suggests to forget all these recordings and drastically increase the amount of live music we listen to . (Aubert 2007, p55) Finally, I will argue that his solution is implausible until the Western media (with specific reference to the UK and USA) changes its tune on international migration.

Participant exploitation occurs as soon as the knowledge and music that is shared -or taken- becomes monetised when it is brought back to the West by ethnomusicologists. [Ethnomusicologists] go on to exploit what they have learned and collected. What they learn is the most valuable of cultural and intellectual properties, but they treat it like artifacts and commodities. (Nettl 2009) They act as an intermediate for the Western record company by sourcing goods with high commercial potential. American song hunter Alan Lomax (1915-2002) travelled the world and field recorded the music of non-western civilisations to then release commercially. The family says that Lomax reserved rights for other uses of the music, such as in television and the movies. (Lei 2000) In doing so, the exploitation of the non-Western artists became exponential since Lomax found other avenues (as well as record sales) of income. The access of non-Western music not only spread to television but also to other artists. Electronic producer Moby released his album Play in 1999, where some tracks include samples from an Alan Lomax album titled Sounds of the South The album consists of recordings of Black Africans singing about slavery and their oppression. Play benefitted from commercial success, enjoying multiple track appearances in TV shows, ads and movies (ibid), arguably because he gave free licensing of his songs in an evidently successful, strategic move: The album had a five-week run at No. 1 on the British charts (ibid) and became the biggest-selling electronica album of all time, with over 12 million copies sold worldwide. (Zlatopolsky 2016)

It s important to acknowledge that Moby s commercial success came from creating a fusion of exotic music with 90s Western Pop and Rock. producers are churning out a kind of homogenous world music by throwing together fragments of different musical cultures and blending them with all the available technology of today s studios (Aubert 2007, p55) The unfamiliarity of the vocal sample combined with the familiarity of the instrumental created the perfect commodity for the Western audience, something that sounds fresh but familiar enough to be appreciated. The integrity of the original songs was butchered which is another layer of exploitation on top of the financial one. Now the question begs, how much did Lomax see of Toby s commercial success? In 2000 Moby and the Lomax family found themselves in a court fight, where it is rumoured that six figure sums were at stake, given that nationwide ads often pay six-figure sums for the rights to use a song. (ibid) Lomax however did set up folk-style (ibid) contracts that allowed him to "commercially exploit" the recordings and bound him to share the proceeds with the musicians. (ibid) Lomax wrote royalty checks to the musicians he recorded typically small sums, sometimes $5 or $15 because he sold few albums. (ibid) Most of the musicians he recorded were either impoverished, imprisoned or abused on plantation fields and so royalty pay-outs are arguably just an insulting, charitable gesture, similar in fashion to international aid.

International aid offers short-term economic, military or emergency humanitarian help (Williams 1998). Aid came about as a result of globalisation and capitalism, which allowed for businesses to place production plants in non-Western impoverished countries in order to minimise their production costs and maximise profit (explainity, 2013). Globalization has been blamed for everything from growing income inequality to chronic high levels of unemployment. (Gilpin et. Gilpin 2000) To summarise, the West not only has a colonial past but also a colonial present by exploiting and keeping poor countries poor so that western businesses can thrive. International aid is in place only to alleviate guilt, superficially giving the impression that Westerners are actually interested in helping. A place to begin would be the payment of healthy wages.

Western colonial behaviour is clearly exercised on an individual level as well, as shown by Alan Lomax. In fact, he was blatantly described as someone who went around the world to collect music from poor people. ( Lomax The Songhunter , 2005) It mirrors business practice in non-Western countries, whereby they take away the workers basic human rights by paying them as little as possible to work and live in inhumane conditions.
On an unethical level, the exploitation Lomax carried out is arguably amplified given the on-going exploitation of non-Western citizens in impoverished countries. In turn, this increases the recompense that the musicians he recorded should receive in order to make ethnomusicologists research less unethical. This can be in the form of helping reduce poverty by giving equitable access to sustainable development, providing secure and resilient food systems, and supported by sustainable marine resources and agriculture. At face value, there is no issue for ethnomusicologists to seek and acquire knowledge Instead, the issue lies with a clear power imbalance from the get-go (Kartomi 1999), largely as a result of globalisation. When non-Western ethnomusicologists have the same freedom as Western ones do to go study music abroad, only then there will be less discussion around issues regarding participant exploitation.

In reference to Aubert s quote in the introduction, he proposes a seemingly more immediate solution to counteracting exploitation. I perceive it so because he refers to having the ability to appreciate [all music] fully (Aubert 2007, p55) and I d argue that that cannot do done until non-Western ethnomusicologists have the power to do the same in Western countries. In turn, non-Western countries and communities can also benefit from the acquisition of knowledge and music. His suggestion of increasing opportunities for live music and taming our obsession with recorded music is too simplistic. There is a much deeper-rooted issue and that is that until the Western governments and mass media stop dehumanising migrants, in turn discouraging tourism, we cannot begin to talk about increasing access to live music globally. A study conducted by the University of Oxford assessing more than 170,000 articles between 2006 and 2015 found that the world "illegal" was the term that most commonly accompanied the terms "migrant" and "immigrant." (Olorunshola 2016) The media s hostility towards migrants is reflected in the beliefs of UK citizens: A 2014 British social attitudes survey found that 24% of the public believed the most common motive for immigration was welfare. (ibid) The reality is that 93% of Welfare claimants are UK-born (ibid) and that two-thirds of migrants already have job offers when they come to the UK. To emphasise how prominent negative attitudes are towards immigration in the UK A YouGov poll [shows that] in the days before Brexit found that 56% of Britons named immigration and asylum as the biggest issue facing the country. (Mehta 2019) The migrant hostility is translating into a decline in tourism: the UK s tourism deficit is bigger than ever, estimated to be £22.5bn. (Calder 2019) Additionally, There were 3 per cent fewer overseas visitors last year than in 2017, representing 1.2 million travellers. Wilson acknowledges the impact of Western Governments and mass media on tourism: with uncertainty around Brexit, it means forward bookings are very difficult. (Wilson 2019)

A similar scenario is the case in the US: immigrants use 39 percent fewer welfare and entitlements benefits per person than native-born Americans. (Nowrasteh et. Orr, 2018) One US journal states that analysis demonstrates a general tendency to frame immigrants in a negative light, consistent with a threat narrative but inconsistent with actual immigrant demographics. (Farris et. Mohamed 2018) Migrant hostility translated into tourism decline, just like in the UK: The U.S. drop in the [overseas travel] market share is now forecast to slip further to 10.9% by 2022, amounting to another 41 million fewer foreign tourists. Under that scenario, travellers would spend $180 billion less... (Zhang 2019) Finally, uncertainty surrounding the Trump administration remains [a] major risk to international traveller sentiment.

The mass media influenced a negative perception of migrants and this translated into tourism decline. It widened the polarisation between UK/US natives and non-UK/US natives, deepening into the mass public an Us and Them mind-set. In ethnomusicology, the terms insider and outsider are prevalent and they tend to refer to those who have knowledge through experience, and those who have textbook knowledge, respectively. (Nettl 1983). Whether either term has positive or negative connotations varies on the context and individual understanding of both terms. In the examples I have given, being an outsider has negative connotations and implications, as insiders have the power to alienate and dehumanise outsiders. In ethnomusicology, the opposite occurs when the ethnomusicologist is often the outsider and is the one who has the power to dehumanise the people they are studying (the insiders) by employing exploitative research methods. Yet, these are one and the same. This is arguably encouraged by the very existence of the term World Music , which like ethnomusicology, tends to refer to any other music that is not Western. Already this creates a scenario for exploitative behaviour from ethnomusicologists by studying non-Western music: the purpose is to make comparisons in order to show that the outsider s own music is superior, and that the host music is merely a stage in the development of the perfect music. (Nettl 1983, p152) Talking Heads David Byrne echoes Nettl s argument on accessing World Music when he said that it`s a way of relegating this ``thing`` into the realm of something exotic weird but safe, because exotica is beautiful but irrelevant they are, by definition, not like us It groups everything and anything that isn`t ``us`` into ``them.` (Byrne 1999). His argument on World Music ties up with Gray s: it refers to music not of this world but of other worlds (Gray 2009, p11) whereby the term was coined by the rich West. (ibid) To summarise, there are clear parallels going on between migration and the media s response and ethnomusicology, with regard to outsiderdom and insiderdom . We need to address Western attitudes towards migration first before we can start seeing an organic growth of the live music industry. Once that happens we are a step closer to focusing the practice of ethnomusicology on solely acquiring knowledge from live experiences only, that could be reciprocated by non-Western ethnomusicologists in the West.

To conclude, ethnomusicology remains true to Boyd s definition. The fact that ethnomusicology is one sided in that only Western ethnomusicologists get the opportunity to learn about and record non-Western music shows that we are not thinking of Ethnomusicology as an ethical field of research but instead as an exploitative endeavour to enrich the Western music industry for its financial gain. Arguably the currently innate exploitative nature of ethnomusicology - that has been amplified by globalisation makes this field of research less legitimate than scientific ones, for example. If the Western consensus is that migration is overall positive and in turn encouraging tourism again, a small step towards making ethnomusicology an ethical field of research is by encouraging culture fluidity and a desire for learning from each other. Until then, Aubert s suggestion remains simply na ve. Finally, the practice of ethnomusicology will continue to be unethical until non-Western ethnomusicologists start multiplying If that was ever to happen, only then we can take the dictionary definition of ethnomusicology at face value and it being accurate of reality.

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