Decolonization for Ethnomusicology and Music Studies in Higher Education

The word decolonization often is used metaphorically in scholarship in the humanities to describe an array of processes involving social justice, resistance, sustainability and preservation. We argue against using decolonization as metaphor because decolonization demands a level of political engagement different from other social justice projects. Decolonization refers to a radical transformation in relations of power, worldviews, and, in an academic context, our role as scholars and our relationship to the university system as an industry. This article interrogates how the word decolonization has been used by ethnomusicologists in previous publications and argues that a discourse of decolonizing music studies and ethnomusicology should not propagate the term as a descriptive signifier while overlooking the issues mentioned above. Excerpts from interviews with three former Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) presidents are presented for readers to interpret how these people in seats of power are thinking about decolonizing music studies. We conclude by suggesting ten practical approaches and projects that begin to address what decolonization involves and how it can be done.