Music and Globalization: Critical Encounters

Preface and Acknowledgments

vii Preface and Acknowledgments This volume grows out of the work of Critical World, a virtual research laboratory that uses ethnographic research to explore the relationship between popular culture and globalization. A Web-based experiment in project-oriented teaching and research (www.criticalworld.net), Critical World provides resources for critical engagement with the products of global culture and creates the opportunity for debate about the role of globalization in our everyday lives. Professors, researchers, students, and artists from various cultural backgrounds and disciplinary perspectives participate in the project. Bringing them together is a common concern about the history and consequences of globalization and a shared interest in popular culture’s potential to reveal something about the worlds that we inhabit. Critical World consists of a series of multimedia modules intended for use in university teaching and research permitting users to combine video, sound, images, and text in novel ways. In addition to providing basic information about the project, the website also allows visitors to correspond directly with the project’s author, either to give feedback or make suggestions about potential contributions to the project. The Critical World Project recieved financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The project was launched officially in 2004 during a three-day international workshop made possible with the assistance of the SSHRC Research Workshops and Conferences program as viii | Preface and Acknowledgments well as the Department of Anthropology and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the University of Montreal, the Canada Research Chair in Comparative Memory (Laval University), l’Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (Bureau Amérique du nord), and the Center for Research on Intermediality (University of Montreal ). A number of the analyses presented in this volume were originally formulated in presentations at the workshop. This workshop would not have been possible without the participation of Prof. Bogumil Jewsiewicki of Laval University in Québec. Critical World has benefited from the guidance of a steering committee that has been critical to the project’s success: Steven Feld, Timothy Taylor, Denis-Constant Martin, Louise Meintjes, and Jocelyne Guilbault. Many thanks to the students, research assistants, and professionals who gave life to the project through their hard work and creative ideas, especially Nelson Arruda, Alexandrine BoudreaultFournier , Sophie Le-Phat Ho, Charles Prémont, Marc Lemieux, Camille Brochu, Yara El-Ghadban, Marc-Antoine Lapierre, Sebastien Ouellette, Kiven Strohm, Ribio Nzeza, Estelle Prébolin, and Benjamin Trépanier. I would also like to recognize Charles Hamel for his patient and thorough approach to programming, François Beaudet for his ongoing technical support, and Lesley Braun and Julie Dénommée who helped with the final formatting of the manuscript. I would especially like to acknowledge Marcel Savard, co-founder of Critical World and coordinator for the first and longest phase of the project. As my primary collaborator on this project, Marcel deserves a great deal of credit for making this vision into a reality, and I am profoundly grateful for his intellectual and artistic contribution. I would like to dedicate this volume to Lucie, for getting me through. Bob W. White Montréal September 2011 Music and Globalization ...