Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Performing ethnography: Irish traditional music sessions and new methodological spaces

2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 6; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14649360500258294

1470-1197

Frances Morton,

Music History and Culture

Abstract This paper attends to recent developments concerned with researching social practice, through an examination of the performance of Irish traditional music in sessions. The aim is to illustrate how to get at the spaces which are made through the practice of performance, and which are often neglected in conventional research methods. I claim that non-representational theory, as a supplementary, rather than prescriptive, approach to methodology, accommodates the reworking of several conventional methods, such as ethnography. After elaborating on the advantages of a 'performance ethnography', I claim that this type of research opens up two methodological spaces of access and knowledge/communication that should not be ignored within geography, because they draw attention to different ways of knowing and getting at space than conventional research methods allow. Cet article étudie l'évolution récente de la recherche sur la pratique sociale en vue d'un examen des séances de représentation de musique irlandaise traditionnelle. L'objet de cette étude est de pouvoir accéder à ces espaces créés dans le cadre de l'interprétation et qui ont été souvent écartés des méthodes de recherche conventionnelles. J'affirme que la théorie non représentative, en tant qu'approche complémentaire plutôt que normative, peut convenir aux modifications apportées à un nombre de méthodes conventionnelles comme l'ethnographie. En soulignant les vertus de «l'ethnographie performative», j'affirme que ce type de recherche révèle deux espaces méthodologiques d'accès et de savoir/ interaction que la géographie ne devrait pas ignorer. Contrairement aux méthodes de recherche conventionnelles, ces espaces attirent l'attention sur les divers moyens de connaître et d'accéder à l'espace. Este papel se centra en los nuevos avances en la investigación de costumbres sociales, con un examen de la interpretación en sesiones de la música tradicional de Irlanda. Pretendo ilustrar cómo se puede obtener acceso a los espacios formados por interpretaciones musicales entre otros, espacios que a menudo no reciben el reconocimiento que merecen en investigaciones que emplean métodos convencionales. Sugiero que la teoría no figurativa, empleada como enfoque suplementario en vez de preceptivo a la metodología, admite la adaptación de varios métodos convencionales como la etnografía. Tras una explicación de las ventajas de una etnografía de representación, sugiero que este tipo de investigación abre dos espacios metodológicos de acceso y conocimiento/comunicación que no se debería dejar de tener en cuenta en la geografía, ya que nos hacen notar las distintas maneras que hay de conocer y obtener acceso a espacios—algo que los métodos de investigación convencionales no permiten. Keywords: performanceIrish musicperformance ethnographypracticeKeywords: interprétation/représentationmusique irlandaiseethnographie performativepratiqueKeywords: representación/interpretaciónmúsica irlandesaetnografía de representacióncostumbre Acknowledgements Nigel Thrift, J- D. Dewsbury, Paul Cloke, Ben Anderson, George Revill, Alan Latham, Derek McCormack, Rob Kitchin, two anonymous referees and Townhouse Publishing. The usual disclaimers apply. Notes 1 A concept introduced by Philip Auslander (Citation1999), who problematizes the nature of the live in relation to media and the economy of cultural reproduction and commodification. This paper uses the notion of liveness as the flow of events in real time, events which cannot be repeated or commodified because they only occur in the now, rather than their reproduction. Even if these performances exist in the memory or in photographs or video, or in this paper indeed, the viewings of these are entirely different performances. 2 I want to make clear that this approach is not an attempt to capture or exemplify performativity; nor to ascertain how this concept shaped the research. I am aware that there is a common conflation of performativity with performance as an event that takes place in a specific space and time, and which implies social practice. However, attending to performativity here would require attention to Butlerian arguments about subject formation, and the relation of subjects to social norms. This research does not set out to do this; it attends to the spaces and times that performances open up by evoking the sense of live performance and the temporary and fleeting spaces which are produced, experienced and felt in the making of Irish music. 3 Despite arguments that advance the reproduction of the live event, I strongly advocate an ontology of liveness, and of the now (see Phelan Citation1993). In this sense, a reproduction of a performance through video, for example, would be a different entity entirely from the live performance itself, and would take on a different life and experience. Such an argument is similar to Walter Benjamin's notion of the 'original', and the loss of the original aura through any form of reproduction. 4 This research was carried out before the national ban on smoking in public places was implemented in Ireland, 2004.