Research on music and minorities is informed by a variety of factors. Fundamentally, research topics, questions, and projects emerge from an interaction between scholars’ curiosity, their social and political awareness, and the cultural, social, and political practices, needs, and aspirations of the individuals and communities they study. At the same time, this research occurs within and is informed by a complex institutional framework consisting of universities and other research institutions, funding organizations, scholarly societies, national and international research policy bodies, a multitude of state institutions in the countries where research is conducted, minority community organizations, NGOs of various kinds, and many other institutional actors. This framework enables research on music and minorities while also guiding and limiting it in significant ways that may not fully align with the interests and aims of the scholars and minority individuals and communities involved in a given research endeavor.

This roundtable discussion brings together current MMRC members who conduct research on a diverse range of topics and have had a variety of international career experiences. Panelists and audience members are invited to share and reflect on their experiences with the institutional framework of music and minority studies, how they navigate it, and how it influences their work. Beyond critically examining the current state of affairs, the discussion aims to identify needs, demands, and visions for the future development of the institutional framework.

 

Speakers:

Amos Darkwa Asare is a Research Fellow at the Music and Minorities Research Center, mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. He previously served as a Lecturer at the Department of Music and Dance, University of Cape Coast and as a Postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Art and Music, University of South Africa from 2021 – 2023. He holds a cotutelle PhD in Ethnomusicology and Cultural Policy from the University of Cape Coast and the University of Hildesheim, Germany. His interdisciplinary research explores African music, minority cultures, sacred sound, and cultural policy, with a regional focus on Ghana and West Africa. His current work examines musical knowledge and ritual practice in the minority Duakor fishing community in Cape Coast, Ghana.

Anja Brunner is Assistant Professor in Ethnomusicology at the Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology at the mdw–University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She was Principal Investigator of the research project “Women Musicians from Syria: Performance, Networks, Belonging/s” (2020–24) at the Music and Minorities Research Center, and is currently PI of the research project “Reverse Ethnomusicology: Migrants as Researchers” (2023–26), both funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Anja Brunner gained a doctorate in musicology from University of Vienna (Austria) with a dissertation about the Cameroonian popular music bikutsi. She has been working as a university lecturer and researcher at the University of Vienna (Austria, 2010–2015) and the University of Bern (Switzerland, 2016–2018). Her research interests include music in the Arab-speaking regions and its diaspora, African (popular) music, music and sound in postmigrant society, gender studies and intersectionality, queer theory, and music and (postcolonial) politics.

Benjy Fox-Rosen is a Research Fellow at the MMRC, where his project examines the development of minority music research in Vienna. A scholar, performer, and composer, he specializes in Yiddish music and its contemporary transmission, with a focus on the challenges and possibilities of modern performance. He studied liberal arts and jazz and contemporary music at the New School in New York City (BA/BFA, 2007) and received a Fulbright Scholarship to Moldova in 2012, researching the transcultural aspects of Yiddish and Moldovan vocal music. From 2017 to 2024, he served as conductor of the nearly 200-year-old Vienna Stadttempel Choir, which was the subject of his 2023 master’s thesis at the University of Vienna, employing ethnographic methods to explore musical practice, continuity, and change. In 2022, he co-directed with Isabel Frey the Artistic Research Pilot Project Challenging the Theater of Memory: Yiddish Song Beyond Kitsch and Stereotype at the MMRC. Fox-Rosen maintains an active career as a singer, bassist, and composer.

Christian Poske is an ethnomusicologist investigating the performing arts of East and Northeast India, as well as Bangladesh, through the lenses of music and conflict, applied ethnomusicology, historical ethnomusicology, and ecomusicology. After acquiring his BA and MA in Instrumental Music (Sitar) from Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata, he completed his PhD in Music at SOAS University of London and the British Library, while working as an Audio Cataloguer and Bengali Cataloguer. Currently, he pursues a three-year project at the Music and Minorities Research Center (Vienna), exploring the relations between music, conflict, and trauma in the context of Naga culture. He is a co-chair of the SEM Applied Ethnomusicology Section and the SEM Special Interest Group for Music and Violence, and Editorial Board Representative for Asia of the Journal of the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives. He has lectured at the University of Vienna, the University of Ljubljana, and UCLA.

 

Chair:

Malik Sharif is the Research Coordinator and Deputy Director of the MMRC. He studied musicology and philosophy and holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology. From 2011 to 2015, he was a researcher and lecturer in ethnomusicology at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. From 2015 to 2018, he was the Head of the Office of the Vice-Rector of Research at the same university, where he worked in research policy, grant acquisition, research management, and knowledge transfer. Sharif has also been the managing director of a community radio station in Graz. He has published works on a variety of musicological and philosophical topics, including the history, sociology, and philosophy of musicology, in particular of ethnomusicology and comparative musicology, as well as academic publishing practices and policy in ethnomusicology, alternative wind band music, and auditory knowledge. Since 2021, he has been the managing editor of the journal Music & Minorities.