With its international symposium “Between Research and Activism: Futures of Music and Minority Studies”, scheduled to take place from 12 to 14 February 2026, the Music and Minorities Research Center (MMRC) will be ushering in a new phase of its existence. As part of this, the MMRC—founded in 2019 to pursue research on music and minorities—plans to celebrate its initial seven years together with researchers, musicians, and non-musical protagonists in a multitude of scholarly panel discussions and roundtables, conversations of an artistic and activistic nature, and musical performances. Thematically, this symposium will centre on discussing approaches to research concerning music and minorities that are situated between the poles of purely academic scholarship and societally relevant projects ranging all the way to activist research.
The Establishment and Profile of the MMRC
The MMRC was founded by Ursula Hemetek in 2019 following her receipt of the renowned Wittgenstein Award of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) in 2018. The award monies made it possible for her to institutionalise her many years of work on music and minorities—which, as a researcher at the Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology (IVE), she had already expanded into an international emphasis—in the form of a research centre focussed on this theme that is unique worldwide. Since then, the MMRC’s investigation of music in the context of minorities has stood as an internationally unique feature of Vienna as a place of research. The seven years since its founding have seen the Center join forces with local and international partners to realise eleven large-scale projects and several smaller ones as well as a multitude of cooperative efforts, lectures, workshops, and concerts. Moreover, its peer-reviewed, open access journal Music & Minorities offers a platform for the dissemination of innovative research findings from this field in accordance with international standards of scholarly publication. And finally, a significant measure implemented by the MMRC in the interest of its sustainable further development has been the seed funding programme Advancing Music & Minorities Research (AMMR). This provides targeted support for early-stage researchers’ development of their project ideas and the associated grant applications.
Research and Social Responsibility
The days of “ivory tower” academic research are hopefully over, at least in ethnomusicology. Minority studies’ socio-political relevance rests upon its engagement with marginalised groups and has always been an important aspect—and at the mdw, ethnomusicological research on minorities began at IVE in 1989. The first research projects of this sort dealt with two of Austria’s so-called autochthonous ethnic groups (Burgenland Croats and Roma/Romnja). During the mid-1990s, the focus in both research and teaching then shifted to migrants and refugees in reaction to political realities (the influx of refugees from Bosnia) and xenophobic political discourses. The minority concept was thereby substantially expanded and repeatedly discussed anew in close collaboration with the study group “Music and Minorities”, which Ursula Hemetek cofounded. The MMRC’s current definition of a minority encompasses persons who “[…] are at higher risk of discrimination on grounds of ethnicity, race, religion, language, gender, sexual orientation, disability, political opinion, displacement and social or economic deprivation”. In its research concerning music and minorities, the MMRC orients itself toward some fundamental guiding principles: research in the spirit of “engaged ethnomusicology” that pursues social responsibility and social justice as central objectives; field research as a mutual process together with research partners where differing knowledges—of both the researchers and the partners—are brought together; and a commitment to combating power imbalances in society by uncovering, illuminating, and critically scrutinising the associated structures.
Symposium and Orientation Going Forward
With the end of the funding period based on the Wittgenstein Award monies, 2026 marks the beginning of a new phase for the MMRC that is being made possible by basic funding from the mdw in combination with third-party funded research projects. The MMRC is taking this milestone as an opportunity to reflect upon the developments of recent years in music-related research on minorities both at the Center itself and in the international research community in a multi-day international symposium. Above all, however, this event will survey current challenges in this field and its future development between the poles of research, artistic practice, and societal engagement. “Between Research and Activism: Futures of Music and Minority Studies” will bring together researchers, musicians, and protagonists from outside the musical realm for intensive exchange and an exploration of new paths in research on music in the context of minorities over a three-day period running from 12 to 14 February 2026. A diverse range of academic and artistic formats will focus on both the past and the future: in two roundtable discussions, the MMRC’s projects to date will be reflected upon by current and former employees of the Center along including discussion of the individual projects’ special features and thematic touchpoints. Moreover, the MMRC’s International Advisory Board will convene with moderation by Ursula Hemetek to pursue current questions from a global perspective in a “key panel” that is set to include Samuel Araujo (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), Naila Ceribašić (Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb), Georgia Curran (University of Sydney), Marko Kölbl (mdw), Svanibor Pettan (University of Ljubljana), Mayco Santaella (Sunway University), and Deborah Wong (University of California, Los Angeles).
There will also be four panel discussions featuring internationally renowned researchers and early-career scholars, two panel discussions conceived to centre specifically artistic and activist perspectives (one of them curated by the NGO “Initiative Minderheiten”), three concerts with local and global music, and a concluding celebration with music and dance.
Through all of this, the symposium will map out a future course for research on minorities at the mdw that builds on a successful past and leads the MMRC into a new phase of activity characterised by both local anchoring and international dialogue.
