Ursula Hemetek
Minority Studies as “Midwife” for the Emergence of Ethnomusicology at the Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology
In 1987, when I began working at the mdw (University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna, at that time Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst), the disciplinary anchoring of the department was folk music research. My dissertation on Wedding Songs in Stinatz (Hemetek 1987), at the University of Vienna, had to be approved in musicology (although it was clearly an ethnomusicological topic) because ethnomusicology as an independent discipline did not yet exist in Austria.
In the specific history of the Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology the focus on minorities, introduced due to my research projects in 1990, was perceived as dealing with musical “otherness” because the department had formerly concentrated on Austrian folk music. Minorities were the reason for the renaming of the department in 2002: “Ethnomusicology” was added to the former “Folk Music Research.” The object of research had been broadened, and because of that it seemed necessary to add another discipline’s name. But that is not the whole story. New methodologies and theories were applied as well. Minority studies actually served as a midwife for these changes.
In my paper, I will focus on some of these changes, give a short account on the development of minority studies at the department and try to add some visions for the future. As I was personally very much involved in this process, this paper is my narrative as an eye witness.