Music, the Arts, and Global Health: In Search of Sangam, its Theory and Paradigms

In general, both music and healthcare have been professionalized, and the major focus of collaborative projects between these two fields has been upon arts-based interventions carried out in clinical settings and evaluated in terms of clinical outcomes. Recently, however, more attention has been paid to the contribution of community arts to primary care and preventive care. On the public health side, the conversation between music, the arts, and health has been moving from the clinic to the community, from clinical medicine with its focus on individual therapeutic interventions to public health with its focus on community development and community capacity building. On the arts side, there is a corresponding move from concert hall, gallery, and stage toward the community.

I argue that the health professions have not yet realized the potential of music and the other arts to mobilize poor communities and to provide meaningful contexts for health education and empowerment. I also contend that artists and ethnomusicologists have a social justice responsibility to work together with public health professionals to explore fully the power of personal and community agency, self-knowledge, and social change in dealing with extreme health problems. I assert that the capacity of music, with other arts, to communicate in uniquely complex and subtle ways offers significant potential for health in ways that other modalities do not. In order to illustrate this emerging field, I will present examples of existing projects and interventions.