Liv Quist Christensen, PhD Candidate, NTNU

A Feminist Participatory Action study of inclusion in university jazz education

keywords: inclusion, jazz, higher music education, gender, intersectionality, FPAR

This study examines musicians’ experiences of inclusion and exclusion in jazz performance at higher education level. Building on feminist phenomenology the project will examine how inclusion and belonging is experienced within the jazz study program at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Norwegian and international studies show that spaces have been male dominated, and women have experienced discrimination (Buscatto, 2022; Lorentzen & Kvalbein, 2008; Strong & Raine, 2019). In light of this, the project will examine how and in which situations gender and other identity categories intersect and play out in the various arenas of jazz education. In this paper I will investigate the intimacy of bodily and social spaces and build on the feminist scholar, Sara Ahmed's concept of "stranger making" (2012). The concept helps to think more concretely about institutional space, and how some people more than others will feel at home in institutions that assume certain bodies as their norm. In line with Feminist Participatory Action Research (Reid & Frisby, 2008) this project connects the personal with the often hidden or invisible institutions that define and shape the lives within the context of jazz education. Drawing on intersectionality literature and Ahmed’s perspectives on academic institutions, the aim of the project is to offer insights into how and why some are included in higher jazz music education and others not.

References

• Buscatto, M. (2022). Women in Jazz: Musicality, Femininity, Marginalization. Milton: Milton: Taylor and Francis.
• Lorentzen, A., & Kvalbein, A. (2008). Musikk og kjønn - i utakt? Musikk og kjønn - om kjønnsarbeidsdelingens mange varianter, grunner og virkninger i musikklivet. Bergen: Norsk kulturråd i kommisjon hos Fagbokforl.
• Reid, C., & Frisby, W. (2008). Continuing the Journey: Articulating Dimensions of Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR). In P. Reason & H. Bradbury-Huang (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of action research : participative inquiry and practice (2nd ed., pp. 93-105). United Kingdom: United Kingdom: SAGE Publications.
• Strong, C., & Raine, S. (2019). Towards Gender Equality in the Music Industry : Education, Practice and Strategies for Change (1 ed.). New York: New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.

About Liv

Liv Quist Christensen is a PhD Candidate at The Center for Gender Research (NTNU) where she is working on a feminist participatory action research project about diversity and inclusion in higher jazz music education. She holds a bachelor’s degree in musicology and a MA degree in Equality and Diversity at Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture at NTNU, Trondheim. Liv works in the intersection between queer studies and feminist critical theory. Together with her supervisor, Jennifer Branlat, she published an article in European Journal of Musicology in 2023, “You should be more cute, you know”: cuteness and negotiations of power in Japanese vocal jazz.