MUSIC, SOCIAL COHESION AND CITIZENSHIP:
OMNIS CIVITAS CONTRA SE DIVISA NON STABIT
MUSIC, SOCIAL COHESION AND CITIZENSHIP:
OMNIS CIVITAS CONTRA SE DIVISA NON STABIT
Author(s): Maria de São José Corte-RealSubject(s): Social Sciences
Published by: Editura Academiei Forțelor Aeriene „Henri Coandă”
Keywords: music; social cohesion; citizenship; civility; education; migration; identity; fado
Summary/Abstract: Recent concerns in intercultural education call for the examination of complex and capricious concepts such as social cohesion and citizenship. Music, an extraordinarily fluid social phenomenon, has served both quite efficiently for long. This presentation illustrates relations between these concepts testing the old slogan Omis civitas contra se divisa non stabit. It is grounded on personal life and academic fieldwork experiences in North America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southwestern Europe. Civility, seen as constitutional action, is observed in three different arenas: New York, Maputo and Lisbon. The cases studied allow to unveiling plays of identity between wild and constitutional forces. Citizenship emerges as a meaningful dynamic experience in search for redefinition of civility. Nation’s construction and deconstruction thoughts are under scrutiny. Migration experiences, life performances, nationalist taming procedures, anxious and pleasurable emotions highlight roles of music in the social life of moving people. The ultimate goal is to advocate listening awareness for civility change and intercultural education. In the global economic crisis era, multi-local and fluid cultural dynamics, observed through music, challenge individual and national social cohesion experiences, relentlessly reminding all of us that regardless costs all civility divided against itself will perish.
Journal: Redefining Community in Intercultural Context
- Issue Year: 2/2013
- Issue No: 1
- Page Range: 15-22
- Page Count: 8
- Language: English