ResearchWorks: Music at the Margins: Mapping Prison Music from the Periphery

  • 6pm
Hanging wire cages
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Category:
Platform / Discussion | Research | ResearchWorks
Event type:
Free | Online
Admission:
Free
Location:
Online

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Music is an integral part of human life in times of joy and triumph, as well as in times of crisis and isolation. In this talk, I reflect on the role of music in Norwegian prisons, where music’s acoustic and social resonances become critically important. As we tackle rising incarceration rates around the world, I discuss the relationship between prison music (including music education, music therapy, music-making and listening initiatives) and the sociocultural, political, ethical and aesthetic implications of this creative practice from multiple perspectives. Mapping the ways music is used – and is useful – in prison, this talk questions whether it is possible to create a more humane, positively transformative, and genuinely reparative prison experience.

Speaker: Áine Mangaoang

Áine Mangaoang is Principal Investigator of a three-year Norwegian Research Council project on music in prisons, supported by a NCR Young Research Talent Award, based at the Department of Musicology, University of Oslo. Her first book, Dangerous Mediations: Pop Music in a Philippine Prison Video (2019), uses a localized case study to ask broader questions about popular music and power in a prison setting, and received the IASPM-US Woody Guthrie Book Prize. Further writing on music and incarceration, and music and place appears in various places including most recently the Journal of World Popular Music (2019), Musicæ Scientiæ (2021), and Sonic Signatures: Music, Migration and the City at Night (2022). Her second book Made in Ireland: Studies in Popular Music (2020), co-edited with John O’Flynn and Lonán Ó Briain, provides a comprehensive introduction to the history, sociology and musicology of Irish popular music in both local and global contexts. Other research interests include pop audiovisuality, and music, accessibility, and (dis)ability, with recent essays on these topics published in Beyoncé: At Work, On Screen, and Online (2020), and One Hit Wonders: An Oblique History of Popular Music (2022).

What is ResearchWorks?

Guildhall School’s ResearchWorks is a programme of events centred around the School’s research activity, bringing together staff, students and guests of international standing. We run regular events throughout the term intended to share the innovative research findings of the School and its guests with students, staff and the public.