The challenges of institutionalization of musical knowledge

Abstract

Modern music institutions have ensured the permanence and renewal of musical practices and have on a broader basis fostered artistic creation. The development of music institutions and the crucial role they have played in the recent history of a great number of music traditions call for a transversal and anthropological reflection. Institutionalization generates an ensemble of processes that directly impact musical knowledge: it contributes to the redefinition of the social and geographical spaces of a given practice or repertoire. By focusing on the journey of a given practice or of a musical category, the authors of this special issue give evidence of the multiplicity of music contexts and the imbrication of institutions in different temporal and territorial scales. They also underline the agency of actors with regards to the coexistence and overlapping of socio-musical institutions. While the institutional context defines a performance space with a status that fluctuates in time and in the musical field, the dynamics generated by the interpenetration of different models of musical socialization draw a complex musical landscape with moving boundaries.