Ethnomusicologists researching towns they live in: Theoretical and methodological queries for a renewed discipline

This article focuses on theoretical and methodological implications of the 20th-century epistemic turn in the humanities towards a more self-critical and politicized approach to the production of knowledge in academia. It examines in particular their general impact on ethnography-based disciplines such as ethnomusicology, arguing that this is felt even more intensely in work being done in the cities the researchers live in, where their home institutions are based. The article then addresses methodological alternatives for ethnomusicology in the rather conflicting 21st century context, such as participatory action strategies eliciting new grounds for collaboration between academic and extra-academic perspectives, based on ongoing initiatives undertaken by an academic research collective in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which integrate political and academic dimensions in new disciplinary ways.