Musical citizenship as a means to disrupt exclusions: Potentials and limitations as understood in times of a pandemic

Abstract

This article focuses on the potential of in-group music lessons to foster musical citizenship. It further discusses the relation between musical citizenship and conventional citizenship and shows how musical citizenship reorientates our thoughts towards citizenship, particularly in the light of the recent pandemic. The discussion is based upon reflection on semi-structured interviews conducted during my ethnographic fieldwork research on musicking among refugees sheltering in reception centres. The discussion is framed with approaches to citizenship and musical citizenship. The discussion is structured in three parts. First, I conceptualize my interlocutors’ current ‘in limbo’ status. Second, I show how music learning in-group fosters musical citizenship and helps navigate exclusions. Third, the attention shifts on how music learning was impacted by the way that the lockdown was implemented as a measure to limit the spread of the pandemic, highlighting the inclusivity of ‘musical citizenship’ undermined by (conventional) citizenship and the relevant exclusionary policies.