Reappraising Community Music as Intervention: A provocation for discussion.

Lee Higgins

This provocation sets out to consider the concept of intervention and its association to community music practices. Over recent years, describing community music as an active intervention has become a common way to articulate the processes by which music leaders or facilitators engage with participants. As the field expands globally it is now time to reassess the use of this term in order to deepen our understanding of what community music does, what it can be, and what it is. The key questions are:

What are the implications when using the term intervention?
Is the notion of intervention apt for a growing global field?

The concept of intervention can have some positive overtones, such as its usage in descriptions surrounding preventative approaches in both health and education. American democratic politician Lucille Roybal-Allard notes that “Newborn screening is a public health intervention that involves a simple blood test used to identify many life-threatening genetic illnesses before any symptoms begin” and describing the Head Start programme,[1] a service that provides early childhood education, health, nutrition, to low-income children and their families states that “I have long been a supporter of the Head Start program because each and every year I witness the dramatic positive impact that early intervention services have on children's lives in my congressional district.” [2] Autism spokeswoman and scientist Temple Grandin’s underlines this by saying, “A treatment method or an educational method that will work for one child may not work for another child. The one common denominator for all of the young children is that early intervention does work, and it seems to improve the prognosis.”[3] As a final example British politician and founder of Quilliam,[4] a counter-extremism think tank, Maajid Nawaz says “The British state already invests in early intervention campaigns in drug abuse and sexual health. Challenging extremism should be no less of a priority.”[5]

If we consider its common language usage though, many examples of the use of both the term and the practice of intervention appear to have a fairly negative connotation. For example, “American intervention in Korea has frequently sparked protest, especially over film” (Goldstein, 2014). Other quotes attributed to various leading figures demonstrates this. Consider Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that “It's alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States.”[6] Samantha Powers, an Irish-born American diplomat notes that “Historical hypocrites have themselves carried out the very human rights abuses that they suddenly decide warrant intervention elsewhere.”[7] Pointing towards colonialism, a course of action closely connected to notions of intervention, Haile Selassie, an Ethiopian statesman and former Emperor reminded his people that “Above all, we must avoid the pitfalls of tribalism. If we are divided among ourselves on tribal lines, we open our doors to foreign intervention and its potentially harmful consequences.”[8] Along the same lines political activist Noam Chomsky states that “The former colonies, in Latin America in particular, have a better chance than ever before to overcome centuries of subjugation, violence and foreign intervention, which they have so far survived as dependencies with islands of luxury in a sea of misery.”[9] Nelson Mandela is reported to say that “intervention only works when the people concerned seem to be keen for peace”[10] a suggestion that appears to have at its heart a call for dialogue and open conversation between any two parties where intervention is a possibility. It is from this departure point, where an agreement or knowledge of the intervening process is understood, that we might think the word intervention is operationalized in the work of community musicians. Does this reflect the situation on the ground or is this an ideal, an imagined narrative community musicians tell themselves and those that fund their projects?

With common signification located within notions of interference, disruption, top-down power, and force, the term intervention is a loaded one. Community music from within the UK grew through the community arts movement in the 1970s, a politicized socially engaged movement that looked to disrupt the elitist grip on access to art. With cultural democracy as a conceptual driver, intervention was employed as a means of creating an opening to have debates surrounding access, inclusion and participation challenging repressive and hierarchical social norms, and a commitment to personal growth and empowerment. Often through invitation, artists stepped into communities and worked alongside people to produce new work that expressed local identity and consequently released strong messages that amplified peoples’ thoughts on issues such as poverty, crime, education and environment amongst many other things. As a global phenomenon community music has now become more nuanced. In Australia, for example, the term intervention is associated with a highly controversial and problematic political package of changes to welfare provisions, law enforcement, land tenure, as well as other measures such as allegations of child sexual abuse and neglect (Bartleet & Higgins, 2018). Many might argue that in such circumstances musical interventions are needed more than ever, but community music facilitators are challenged to ask themselves, (1) on whose terms this musical activity is happening, (2) whether those are appropriate to the cultural context in which they are operating, and (3) whether the intervention is acting as another colonizing endeavour or promoting a more positive sense of self- determination for participants.[11] These provocations should prompt community musicians to take a reflexive view of both their own cultural legacy and the work they current do. An exploration of the term intervention provides us an opportunity to re-calibrate the language and understanding of what community music does, what it can be, and what it is.

References

Ashley, L., & Lines, D. (Eds.). (2016). Intersecting Cultures in Music and Dance Education: An Oceanic Perspective New York: Springer.

Bartleet, B.-L., & Higgins, L. (2018). Introduction: An Overview of Community Music in the Twenty-First Century. In B.-L. Bartleet & L. Higgins (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Community Music (pp. 1-20). New York: Oxford University Press.

Goldstein, R. (2014). Propaganda, Protest, and Poisonous Vipers: The Cinema War in Korea. Daily Beast. Retrieved from https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-official-floated-withdrawing-us-forces-to-please-putin?source=dictionary

Rakena, T. O. (2018). Community Music in the South Pacific. In B.-L. Bartleet & L. Higgins (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Community Music (pp. 71-88). New York: Oxford University Press.

[1] https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ohs

[2] https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/lucille_roybalallard

[3] https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/temple_grandin

[4] https://www.quilliaminternational.com/

[5] https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/maajid_nawaz

[6] https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/vladimir_putin

[7] https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/samantha_power See also https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/cnn-challenges-samantha-power-russian-interference-you-could-have-done-lot

[8] https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/haile_selassie

[9] https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/noam_chomsky

[10] https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/nelson_mandela

[11] See the work of Te Oti Rakena (2018) who writes from a Māori First Peoples perspective. See also (Ashley & Lines, 2016).