ABSTRACT
Scholars have long called attention to the processes through which music is refashioned in global cultural contexts. There is much more to be said, however, regarding the conundrums that emerge when music researchers operate within spaces where faith feels incompatible with scholarship. Building on this ongoing methodological conversation, I use the concept of migration to offer insight into some of the tensions and epistemological contradictions of church music research. In particular, I aim to show how both religious practitioners and field researchers “settle in” to physical and spiritual spaces while maintaining a state of readiness to move. Although related terms, such travel, mobility, and globalization also point to the dynamism of cultural phenomena, I suggest that a focus on the “migratory” calls attention to the intentional, goal-oriented nature of (re)location.
This chapter invites a reflexive consideration of research on congregational church music, drawing on my experience as a “migrant” and “observant participant” in a variety of African diasporic communities of faith. My focus is on the following questions: What methodological challenges do scholars of congregational music face as they move about in twenty-first-century intellectual, theological, and political arenas? To what extent must believers, and believing scholars in particular, “migrate” to participate in music-making and gain knowledge of it? I propose that scholars and worshipers participate in ways that are informed by diverse academic and religious “faiths.” Migration emerges as a conceptual tool for grasping the strategies through which participants position themselves within the church and academic homes.
