In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Introduction
  • Amber R. Clifford-Napoleone (bio)

In both Michael M. J. Fischer’s Anthropological Futures (2009) and Rabinow and colleagues’ conversations in Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary (2008), it is suggested that today’s anthropology must critically interrogate the most basic tenets of methodology, theory, and the present. Collaboration across disciplinary lines, disrupting methodological and theoretical borders and transecting anthropology’s roots in so-called “traditional” fieldwork are certainly aspects of this new turn toward the contemporary. In addition, new shifts in anthropological thinking require reappraisal of the subject/informant/interlocutor and the relationships between “subject” and “researcher” in the twenty-first century. In this special section on music and sound, scholars suggest that collaborative anthropology, as both theory and method, is key to a contemporary study of music and sound.

In the nascent field of collaborative ethnography, practitioners seek to move beyond simple participation to a more grounded exploration of culture by centering collaboration with interlocutors directly and frequently. Instead of relegating collaboration to the realm of field techniques, collaborative ethnography endorses a practice of continuous, sustained involvement of both researcher and the researched. Ethnographers of music and sound, across disciplines, have focused on the ideas of participation and collaboration with interlocutors. The very act of music making is collaborative, involving not just the practitioner but the audience as well. Scholars of music and sound have a long history [End Page 31] of collaborative master-student relationships with practitioners as well as a strong push for scholars to involve themselves in the performative and collaborative acts of music and sound making. What does the centering of collaboration as theory and method mean for the study of music and sound? Where and how can scholars of music and sound open their work to a wider interrogation by performers and musicians within the subject? Should we, as ethnographers of music and sound (and beyond), seek to reframe our studies with collaboration as the guiding concept? How can both anthropologists and ethnomusicologists, working across disciplinary boundaries, bridge the gaps between participation, collaboration, and observation? In this exploration five scholars working in collaborative ethnographies of music and sound present their research and examine the ways in which scholars can redefine, interrogate, and push the boundaries of collaboration. Scholars specializing in San Francisco’s hip hop scene, Senegalese female praise music, public anthropology and music making in Bali, vocal music from the Greek island of Skyros, and Kazakh fiddle playing discuss the myriad forms of collaboration in their work, from field to publication, and begin a conversation among scholars from several fields about the possibilities of collaboration in the study of music and sound. The essays assembled consider new ways to stretch the boundaries of ethnography, fieldwork, the study of music and sound, and collaboration. Taken as a whole, the articles address two tropes at the intersection of those boundaries: a repositioning of the master-student concept in the study of music and sound, and a reconfiguring of collaboration as bridge between disciplinary thinking and theorized cultural practice.

The master-student dichotomy, long a mainstay of work in the study of music and sound, is a concept ripe for collaborative revision. The study of music and sound is perhaps exceptional in its dependence on a key informant, an interlocutor extraordinaire, the “master” of a particular sound, instrument, or genre, who serves as both a source of information and a teacher of the scholar-student. The scholar-student is still a scholar, however, and continues to collect and interpret information despite seemingly junior status in the relationship. This master-student relationship creates two problematic positions for the scholar. First, how can one remain both ethnographically grounded and an engaged student? If one of the key factors in the study of music and sound is that both production and reception have equal importance, then [End Page 32] one should both play and listen. In this master-student relationship the scholar must listen for two strains of information: the produced sound that one is trying to learn, interpret, and understand, and the complicated process of ethnographic listening. The second problematic position of a student-scholar is the gap between field-based knowledges (what the scholar...

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