Music Refuge: Living Asylum through Music [Hardcover]

Forced migration has led to the creation of unique spaces where music is made, shared, and experienced. Charting over eight years of research, this book uncovers the musical lives of those seeking asylum and refuge in 'host' countries. In bridging migration studies and music education, this book moves away from victim narratives and instead offers an expanded understanding about the relationship between music, refuge, identity, belonging and, ultimately, hope.Forced migration has led to the creation of unique spaces within varying contexts where music is made, shared, and experienced.Music Refugecharts over eight years of research to uncover the musical lives of those seeking asylum and refuge in 'host' countries. This book explores how migration, mobility, and emplacement become entangled through musical interactions, focusing on how people seeking asylum create musical spaces. Through music, asylum seekers discover alternate forms of identity that resist categorizations, nationalisms, monocultures, and fixed geographies. Moving away from refugee and asylum-seeking tropes that rely on narratives of victimhood,Music Refugeforegrounds agency and the claiming of space while living within and through asylum seeking systems.Ailbhe Kenny documents the voices of those seeking asylum within multi-sited contexts and frames their music making as spaces for becoming and belonging. She bridges research in migration studies and music education, offering a fresh perspective and in-depth understanding of adults and children living through asylum-seeking systems within Europe and beyond. The result is a cogent and timely exploration of music as belonging, refuge, and ultimately, hope.List of FiguresAcknowledgments1. Music-Making and Asylum SeekingInterlude: A Broken ClarinetInterlude: A Concert Dress and Shoes2. Seeking Asylum, Living AsylumInterlude: Change My RealityInterlude: Liberation in the Melodies3. Why Music?l³)