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Music and Peace

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Methodologies in Peace Psychology

Part of the book series: Peace Psychology Book Series ((PPBS,volume 26))

Abstract

Increasingly across the globe, music and the arts have been utilized in projects designed to address social-psychological aspects of conflict. These include projects aiming to contribute to peacebuilding through healing trauma, educating for peace, developing listening and self-expressive capacities, challenging prejudicial/dehumanizing conflict narratives, and (re)building relationships. There is, however, little evaluation of music- and arts-based peacebuilding projects examining whether the intended social-psychological related goals have been reached. The study of an Indonesian-based peacebuilding project utilizing music and the arts is presented. The study provides an example of how peace practitioners can utilize music to stimulate psychological shifts conducive to peace and how one might research the impacts of such projects. The project under study targeted the intolerance of local Islamic communities toward the artistic practices of the local non-Islamic Javanese communities in Surakarta. The study found that the participating Islamic communities developed a greater tolerance toward and appreciation of the musical practices originating from local non-Islamic cultures. Further study is recommended to investigate the impact of the study on direct interactions between these communities.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For an example of the use of praise song to dismantle hostile emotions and facilitate recognition of a common sense of humanity, leading to a lasting peace accord in West Africa (see Lederach, 2005).

  2. 2.

    See Cohen, 2005 for a discussion of the use of playback theatre (actors and musicians improvising recreations of audience members’ stories) in various locations across the globe to restore expressive and listening capacities.

  3. 3.

    See Taylor, 2004 for an example of the potential of cultural exchanges including family stories, traditional cooking, and songs to prompt the development of multigenerational and cross-cultural bonds between Israeli and Arab communities.

  4. 4.

    For an overview of the use of music for trauma healing in post-conflict societies, see Heidenreich, 2005.

  5. 5.

    See Bensimon, 2009 for an example of how spiritual and emotive songs prompted security force members to engage in perspective taking and feel greater empathy for protesting Jewish settlers in Gaza strip.

  6. 6.

    For examples of music programmes targeting school children to reduce demonizing/negative stereotyping of minority groups in Portugal and Spain (see Sousa, Neto, and Mullet, 2005 and Rodriguez-Bailon, Ruiz, and Moya, 2009).

  7. 7.

    See Zelizer, 2003 for an example of how people created and attended concerts, festivals, and other arts-based events during the Bosnian war as a form of resistance to the surrounding culture of violence.

  8. 8.

    See Bornstein (2008) for a detailed review of the sociopolitical context relevant to the PAS project.

  9. 9.

    The PAS project also utilized religion as a tool for peace. For example, armed with a local understanding of targeted Muslim communities’ concerns regarding local cultures, PSB-PS were able to respond appropriately to religiously framed apprehensions about the PAS project (e.g., rejections of the arts as “un-Islamic” or as distracting from devotion to God) through sensitively discussing these concerns and providing credible religiously grounded responses. Making use of their religious peacebuilding tools, PSB-PS managed to implement the program in targeted Islamic schools despite the initial resistance from some related parent communities and religious institutions. See Bornstein (2008) for more on religious peacebuilding and the PAS project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Independent Consultant, Melbourne, Australia

    Jaqueline Bornstein

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  1. Jaqueline Bornstein
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Correspondence to Jaqueline Bornstein .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia

    Diane Bretherton

  2. Victoria University, Melbournne, Victoria, Australia

    Siew Fang Law

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Bornstein, J. (2015). Music and Peace. In: Bretherton, D., Law, S. (eds) Methodologies in Peace Psychology. Peace Psychology Book Series, vol 26. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18395-4_17

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