Ecomusicology considers the varied connections between music, culture, and nature in a period of
environmental crisis. As an interdisciplinary field of scholarship that moves music and sound studies
away from an exclusionary anthropocentrism and towards a more embracing ecocentrism, ecomusicology can
be an activist, political endeavor as well as a poetic, intellectual one. There are many ways to connect
sonic, social, and environmental matters for various issues and topics. Rather than a discipline or methodology,
then, ecomusicology is best understood as a plurality: as ecomusicologies. But even with such an inclusive,
Earth-centered approach, ecomusicology risks becoming another problematic Occidental export — one that could
become as toxic as Western neoliberalism or wilderness-fetishizing environmentalism. After providing an overview
to ecomusicology, and with encouragement from “diverse environmentalisms,” I propose a “global ecomusicologies”
to allow the variegated and multiperspectival natures of ecomusicologies to flourish in different contexts — while
still being situated to help make a difference.
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