Since 2007 I have been working on music/development projects, starting with “Giving Voice to Hope: Music of Liberian Refugees”, which began in 2007, emerging out of my Ghana study abroad program.
A series of projects, with these refugees and others, developed into a broader project “Music for Global Human Development (M4GHD). M4GHD entails participatory action research in music and development (humanized in aims and methods), centered on global collaborations between academics, NGOs, government organizations, musicians, and others, applying ethnomusicology to real-world social issues, focusing on peoples who have been marginalized – socially, politically, economically – by colonialism and its aftermath, whether in the “developing” world or not. These music-centered projects, often including related arts (dance, poetry, drama) as well, are ideally twinned with evaluative evidence-based research, gauging project impact through anthropological and sociological study. They are carried out as collaborative partnerships with artists and other experts in each locale.
For an overview see: http://m4ghd.org
Follow this link for a video about Shadow, a refugee producer/musician: https://vimeo.com/19579830
Information about the refugee music project: http://bit.ly/buducd
Songs for Sustainable Peace and Development project: http://bit.ly/songsspd
Dr. Michael Frishkopf is Professor in the Department of Music, Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta, Director of the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology, Research Fellow at FolkwaysAlive!, Adjunct Professor at the Division of Community Engagement in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, and Adjunct Professor for the Program in Religious Studies within the Faculty of Arts. For more information see: http://frishkopf.org
