%0 Journal Article
%T Music and collective identities
%A Milanovi£¿ Biljana
%J Muzikologija
%D 2007
%I Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
%R 10.2298/muz0707119m
%X This paper presents some introductory observations on the ways in which the opposition between the modern and post-modern understanding of social identities can be overcome in the context of musicology. It is based on the consideration of identities as dynamic and changeable categories, as well as on the importance of the relation between individual and collective positionings, on the complexities of the multiple identifications and on the understanding of music as a social construction of identity. Due attention is paid to basic theoretical and methodological aspects in the interdisciplinary analysis of ¡äself¡ä and ¡äother¡ä. In music, the problems of self-presentation appropriation, difference, power, control, authenticity, hybridity, as well as other issues that blur the boundaries between musicology, ethnomusicology and the studies of popular music, are made relevant by these interdisciplinary terms. Both the modern and post-modern understanding of identity can first be placed in the context of the binary questions: ¡äHow to construct the identity and maintain it?¡ä and ¡äHow to avoid the construction of the fixed identity and thus leave the door open for the possibility of change?¡ä. It seems that the deconstruction of these opposite approaches has now grown in importance. This paper focuses especially on that kind of theorizing about music and socio-cultural identities. The views of Georgina Born and David Hesmondhalgh, that older and recent models of music representation are not ¡äeither/or¡ä categories but rather complement each other, are especially singled out. These authors show by numerous examples that music can invariably both reflect existing identities and construct new ones. They conclude that possible shortcomings, such as the danger of essentialism in the earlier approach, and of later reductionism, could be avoided by carefully using the homology and process models of music representation. Their typology of music articulation of a socio-cultural identity, however, leaves the opposition between ¡äreal¡ä and ¡äimagined¡ä intact. The theoretic analysis of other disciplines leads us to conclusion that these categories were the result of different images, whose opposite poles existed in the contrary approaches of ¡ärealism¡ä and ¡äradical constructivism¡ä. In this context, the analysis of Milan Suboti  in the field of social theory is singled out as a ¡ämiddle-way¡ä position between these opposite sides. This approach in musicology could be most helpful in keeping an equal distance from both ¡äimagination¡ä and ¡äreality¡ä. Where society is concerned, reality i
%U http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/1450-9814/2007/1450-98140707119M.pdf