Is it time to stop talking about music and social transformation?

Is it time to stop talking about music and social transformation? Geoff Baker I’ve been directly working on music and social transformation since 2007. My interest in music, society, and politics in Latin America goes back another decade before that, so there was a lot of laying of groundwork, starting with my PhD on music and colonialism in Peru. But in 2007 I went to see the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra at the Proms in London and embarked on a research project on Venezuela’s El Sistema, which is the world’s largest program of social action through music. It became apparent during the course of my research that the notion of social action through music had been grafted onto El Sistema halfway through its history for pragmatic reasons: to gain funding and political support. There was also a central contradiction. Behind the progressive discourses of social inclusion and changing society lay conservative, old-fashioned music education practices of the European past. So I went on to publish a book critiquing the philosophy and practices of this famous organization (Baker 2014). Then I went on to study the Red de Escuelas de Música (Network of Music Schools) in Medellín, Colombia, which began in the late 1990s under the wing of El Sistema but then went its own way in the 2000s. That project became a book reflecting on the possibilities for reform of the international field inspired by El Sistema (Baker 2021/2022). I saw the Medellín program as an ambiguous example of how change is possible but also how many challenges remain in realizing the ambitious goal of transforming society through music. Since the publication of those books, I have been working for a charity called Agrigento, which funds musicians, educators, and researchers who are rethinking established ideas 2 and practices of music as social action. So my focus has steadily broadened since 2007, from a single program, to the surrounding field, to the whole spectrum of musical work with social goals. During this time, my way of thinking about music and social action has changed. As well as considering how we might do this work better, I have also become more critical of music and social transformation as a notion or goal. Part of the reason has to do with its history. El Sistema describes its mission as "rescu[ing] children and youth from an empty, disoriented and deviant youth". There are clear parallels between this program and the "musical conquest" of the Americas by the Spanish in the 16th century. The idea of using music to "save" and transform people and communities has obvious colonial roots, and more recently figures such as Colombian anthropologist Carlos Miñana and Costa Rican music education scholar Guillermo Rosabal-Coto have elaborated critiques of music as social action from a decolonial perspective. Rosabal-Coto (2019) points to its foundation in a colonialist conception of the subject as deficient or defective and in need of correction and redemption. In more recent times, music for social transformation has been subject to political appropriation. El Sistema was embraced by the Venezuelan government in the early 2000s, and eventually came to be operated out of the Office of the President; it is probably the prime example of the exercise of authoritarian political power through music education in the world today. El Sistema received its biggest boost under a socialist government, but equivalent programs in neighbouring Colombia were promoted by the right-wing president Álvaro Uribe. Carlos Miñana has explored how music education for social transformation, after serving colonialism, was then co-opted 3 by neoliberal politics in Colombia. We also find appropriation by commercial interests: the largest El Sistema-inspired program in Latin America, Mexico's Esperanza Azteca, used public funds to boost the image and business empire of Ricardo Salinas Pliego, the country’s third richest man. In the Global North, the rhetoric of social change has been adopted by hegemonic cultural organisations such as symphony orchestras to promote their work. It has also been harnessed for individual career development and entrepreneurship. One example is the Global Leaders Program in the United States, which emerged out of the North American branch of El Sistema. The program describes itself as an MBA in Arts Innovation aimed at "arts entrepreneurs" seeking "accelerated career growth" and “leadership edge". The program's advisors include a number of business leaders and business school professors. In the US, it took only a decade for El Sistema’s advocates to move from "music will transform the world" to "get an MBA and transform your career". This marketing of music for social change as a good career move for cultural entrepreneurs illustrates its assimilation into the logic of neoliberalism. So I think the notion of "music and social transformation" needs to be critically reviewed. It has become part of the rhetoric of governments, hegemonic cultural institutions, the music industry, and the music education sector. It has become a dominant and official discourse in the music world, used frequently to justify funding. This rhetoric has been widely co-opted and utilized for purposes other than social change, whether to promote an art-form, a career, a business or a political agenda. As such, it may do little to promote genuine change in the social status quo; it may even be counterproductive. As I discussed in my most recent book, such programs can be 4 appealing to politicians because they are a cheap and attractive substitute for more direct and effective social action (especially policies to reduce economic inequalities). Owen Logan writes of a "veil of culture": how the state can use cultural programs to hide its real functioning. Today we might talk about “artwashing,” and as usual, El Sistema provides the most glaring example: the Venezuelan government pours money into parading El Sistema’s showcase ensembles around the world as symbols of “music for peace and social change,” while carrying out egregious abuses of human rights at home. In 2021, it organized the world’s largest orchestra as a publicity stunt to coincide with elections; it plans to do the same, this time with a choir, for the 2024 elections. The imbrication of social action through music and authoritarian populism could not be clearer. For businesses, supporting such programs can serve as a means to minimise taxes. As I discuss in the book, social action for music can even reinforce dynamics such as inequality and social division, thus worsening the very social problems it purports to solve. I also have issues with the words “social transformation.” On the one hand, what many music programs aim to change is not so much society as the individual. This is quite explicit in the case of El Sistema, with its talk of "rescuing children and young people from an empty, disoriented and deviant youth". In other similar programs, this thinking may be more implicit or subtle, but there often remains an underlying assumption that social problems are rooted in individual deficits or failings, and the way to solve them is to correct the behaviour and attitudes of the individual. At heart, rather than transforming society, they seek to change other people. I think that this raises big questions: Is it ethical? Is it possible? Is it the role of musicians? Is it a path to social change? After all, social scientists generally attribute serious social problems, such as 5 poverty or violence, to structural causes such as inequality. Therefore, it is unlikely that these problems will be diminished by “reforming” a few individuals. In this sense, I believe that "music for social transformation" is the wrong label for much work that falls into this category. “Music for social control" would often be more appropriate. Or "music for social reproduction", because in many cases the underlying ideology seems to be normalisation – that is, inculcating or reinforcing existing social norms, rather than challenging the status quo. Or "music for social mobility", because this is often what lies underneath: the aspiration to improve the life chances of a few individuals participating in a music program rather than a systemic transformation of social structures. Despite the abundant use of the word social, the imaginary is highly individualistic: when it comes to demonstrating social change, it relies heavily on individual stories of redemption or success, like that of Gustavo Dudamel. I also find that the rhetoric of music and social transformation is, in many cases, exaggerated and disproportionate to what actually happens. In her book Rethinking Music Education and Social Change, Alexandra Kertz-Welzel (2021) criticises excessive beliefs about the power of music as a form of kitsch. She points to the sentimentality, denial of complexity, and emotionally charged illusions that are commonplace. This field is marked by rhetorical excess, and El Sistema reveals the extent to which utopian discourses can stray from reality. El Sistema gained worldwide fame for its supposed rescue of the poor, and its founder, José Antonio Abreu, famously claimed: "the immense majority of our children and youth belong [...] to the most vulnerable strata of the Venezuelan population." Some press articles claimed that 90 per cent of the participants came from poor households. Years later, the Inter-American Development Bank 6 undertook a major evaluation, and found that only 17% of the children enrolled in El Sistema fell below the poverty line, while the poverty rate of the states in which they lived was 47%. In other words, there were far fewer poor children in the program than in society at large. According to the bank, the evaluation “highlights the challenges of targeting interventions towards vulnerable groups of children in the context of a voluntary social program.” Two other projects that are also international media favourites are Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and Afghanistan's National Institute of Music. But if we look at Venezuela, the Middle East or Afghanistan, where is the social transformation? Where are the signs that any of this actually works? Moreover, it often seems to me that the more grandiloquent the social rhetoric, the more problematic the ideological foundations and educational practices. Behind the extravagant claims, there is often musical and educational conservatism, especially in the larger projects: a fondness for conventional classical music education and a salvationist or charitable approach – again, in the words of El Sistema, “rescuing children and young people". While I remain interested in the possibilities of reforming large programs such as the Red de Escuelas de Música de Medellín, my attention has also shifted to projects that seek to resist colonialist and paternalistic logics. This can mean a focus on more marginalised musics, but also a distancing from the notion of music as correction or salvation. I am increasingly interested in work that seeks to change the music rather than the individual, which means that aims may be framed primarily in cultural terms and only secondarily in social ones. Participants are seen as social actors with cultural 7 assets rather than as deficient individuals or even potential delinquents who need to be reformed through music. I am increasingly attracted to smaller, more local, grassroots projects, and ones that speak less about social transformation than about more concrete, more immediate and more realistic goals. In general, I find more compelling, coherent and innovative visions in grassroots projects than in their larger, more famous and more ambitious counterparts. I have the feeling that the most socially potent musical work may be happening without strident claims about how music is going to change the world. So where might this lead us at an intellectual level? One route would be to take the notion of music and social transformation more seriously. The academic world has participated in the proliferation of this discourse, and we could take a more rigorous approach, reserving this term for work founded on the intention of challenging the social status quo rather than disciplining or normalising participants. With specific reference to music education, I want to suggest four ways in which we might determine whether a program or practice could be designated as belonging to this category. 1) Is the curriculum and/or pedagogy designed around social change goals (Rabinowitch 2020)? 2) Does the program incorporate social justice principles in music education (Benedict et al. 2015)? 3) Does it articulate a compelling theory of change (Dunphy 2018)? 4) Is it connected to a broader movement for social change (Kuttner 2015)? 8 So one option might be to use the discourse of music and social transformation more rigorously and thus resist its appropriation by dominant social actors. Another would be to abandon this discourse, considering that the most interesting musical work could be taking place under other banners. To stop trying to put so much musical activity in this box, taking into account the colonial history of this concept and its contemporary appropriation by politicians and hegemonic institutions. To look for other, less grandiloquent ways of talking about music’s imbrication with the social. François Matarasso, an important thinker on these issues, argues that the purpose of participatory arts is not to change people, communities or the world.1 That is a possible outcome, but it is not the purpose. For him, the purpose is participation in cultural life, which can enable people to flourish and choose what to do with their lives. He has argued that it is a mistake to accept additional social goals, as this instrumentalises the arts, relies on the problematic idea that some people have the right to change others, and places an undue burden on musicians. For Matarasso, participatory arts do not produce change, but rather give people options and choices, which include the decision to change – or to stay the same. In addition, I find it interesting that Matarasso dwells on the word "flourish", as it is one that I am increasingly interested in, for example in relation to its central role in the field of positive psychology. It is also an important word in the analysis that Kertz-Welzel makes of the possibilities and limits of music education. I find this notion ethically preferable (enabling others to flourish is very different from trying to change them) and 1 I draw here on Matarasso (2015) as well as other public talks and discussions. 9 more realistic (I find it much easier to see how music can help people flourish than how it can overcome poverty or violence). I like "flourishing" because it doesn't smack of deficit thinking, because it doesn't stigmatize specific populations (we could all flourish more), and because there is lots of research on how to foster it. In general, I am more convinced by projects that have more modest and therefore more achievable goals. Flourishing is more connected to everyday musical and educational reality than social transformation. Regardless of how we choose to use this language or not, I think the time has come to take a more critical approach to the notion of music and social transformation and its proliferation in recent times. If almost any musical activity can be considered socially transformative, this language loses much of its meaning. It breeds complacency, eliding the ambiguity and relational nature of music’s effects, and reduces the space for more radical thinking and action. So I don't see this critical approach as negative, but rather as a necessary step to maximise the positive potential of music. References Baker, Geoffrey. 2014. El Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Baker, Geoffrey. 2021. Rethinking Social Action through Music: The Search for Coexistence and Citizenship in Medellín’s Music Schools. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. 10 Baker, Geoffrey. 2022. Replanteando la acción social por la música: la búsqueda de la convivencia y la ciudadanía en la Red de Escuelas de Música de Medellín. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. Benedict, Cathy, Patrick Schmidt, Gary Spruce, and Paul Woodford, eds. 2015. The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice in Music Education. New York: Oxford University Press. Dunphy, Kim. 2018. “Theorizing Arts Participation as a Social Change Mechanism.” In The Oxford Handbook of Community Music, edited by Brydie-Leigh Bartleet and Lee Higgins, 301–21. New York: Oxford University Press. Kertz-Welzel, Alexandra. 2021. Rethinking Music Education and Social Change. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Kuttner, Paul J. 2015. “Educating for Cultural Citizenship: Reframing the Goals of Arts Education.” Curriculum Inquiry 45 (1): 69–92. Matarasso, François. 2015. “Music and Social Change: Intentions and Outcomes.” Paper given at the first International Symposium of SIMM (Social Impact of Making Music), Ghent. Rabinowitch, Tal-Chen. 2020. “The Potential of Music to Effect Social Change.” Music & Science. Rosabal-Coto, Guillermo. 2019. “The Day after Music Education.” Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education 18 (3): 1–24.