Over the past half-century, an increasing amount of musical activity worldwide has taken place in connection with the work of Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs). The rise of this “third sector” has transformed the ways in which music is transmitted, taught, funded, and understood in varied global contexts, and many contemporary ethnomusicological research projects inevitably intersect with NGO discourses and practices. However, the field of Ethnomusicology lacks systematic theoretical and methodological approaches to engaging with this relatively novel institutional structure, perhaps in part because of its historical privileging of the rural and the “authentic;” a nonprofit organization is not a “community” in the traditional ethnographic sense, after all. Yet without addressing these complex and often transnational institutions’ roles in diverse societies, we cannot adequately interpret much twenty-first century musical activity.
This roundtable brings together panelists whose research engages with NGOs and music-making in Nepal, Cambodia, and the United States, with a focus on topics including environmental sustainability, post-conflict social formation, and youth education. United by their critical attention to the role of NGOs in their areas of study, the panelists have three primary goals for this roundtable: first, to articulate their understanding of NGOs’ present role in music-making; second, to synthesize existing approaches to studying NGOs and their cultural impact (e.g. Sociology of NGOs [DiMaggio 2006]; Anthropology of Development [Escobar 1995]; Cultural Studies [Yúdice 2006]; Ethnomusicology [Luker 2016; Ndaliko 2016] and propose new directions; and third, to build a community of ethnomusicologists who wish to collaborate and advance this area of study.