2014 Meeting Minutes

ECONOMIC ETHNOMUSICOLOGY SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP
ALLEGHANY ROOM, SEM 2014
FRIDAY, 14 NOV 2014, 7AM
MEETING CALLED TO ORDER AT 7:10AM BY ANNA MORCOM

ATTENDANCE:
Nick Tochka, Northern Arizona University
Ben Dumbauld, CUNY Graduate Center
Marc Perlman, Brown University
Alexander Cannon, Western Michigan University
Ana Hofman, University of Ljubljana
Eben Graves, Southwestern University
Tim Storhoff, Independent Scholar
Kariann Goldschmitt, University of Cambridge
Laryssa Whittaker, Royal Holloway, University of London
Kendra Salois, University of Maryland, College Park
Shannon Garland, Columbia University/Independent Scholar
Meryl Krieger, Indiana University
Lynn Hooker, Indiana University
Jayson Beaster-Jones, University of California, Merced
Daniel Gough, University of Chicago
Andy McGraw, University of Richmond
Mason Brown, University of Colorado Boulder
Matt Knight, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Juan Carlos Melendez-Torres, Independent Scholar
Anna Morcom, Royal Holloway, University of London

ORGANIZATION/MISSION OF SIG:
A. Morcom: How do we want to go about electing officers? Tom Wagner volunteered to be administrator. Because of clashes, it might be best to do the elections over email. Mission statement? Any edits?
[round of introductions from all in attendance]
A. Morcom: Thoughts about starting by creating a rolling bibliography? Maybe a Google Doc?
N. Tochka: Maybe a Wiki page, like the Popular Music Section?
A. Morcom: That’s what Tom [Wagner] suggested.
L. Whittaker: Maybe use Mendeley to organize a communal bibliography?
J.C. Melendez-Torres: I can help set it up and dig around to check out sharing capabilities.
A. Morcom: Also need to set up some kind of listserv. We could also do a Facebook page, but that might be too public.
M. Perlman: Let’s not do Facebook… too public.
K. Goldschmitt: There’s an open source option, but they haven’t figured out privacy yet.
A. Morcom: Many ethical concerns exist regarding Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc… [extended scattered conversation] We’d also like to do a panel for SEM next year.
M. Perlman: Let’s try to follow the model of the Popular Music Section [PMS] and have invited speakers to SEM. How is it financed?
M. Krieger: PMS has actually been a well-funded section for many years now.
K. Goldschmitt: Once you become a section, you get to ask for money through dues or from SEM. Both PMS and Latin American Section are all well-funded. You have to make sure you’re being paid attention to by SEM members to move from a Special Interest Group to a Section.
A. Morcom: There are lots of people doing this work, including Tim Taylor and others.
M. Perlman: We can scan the local universities for future SEM meetings and see who works at those places in economic ethnomusicology. Austin, TX [SEM 2015] could provide an interesting look at music industry studies. We need to at least acknowledge the existence of music industry studies and consider new approaches to studying it.
A. Morcom: We want this SIG to be as broad as possible so as to be widely inclusive.
E. Graves: Austin is broadly marketed as a live music destination, so it could yield an interesting discussion.
[broad discussion of SXSW and Austin City Limits]

KEYNOTE ADDRESS AND PRECONFERENCE POSSIBILITIES:
M. Krieger: Maybe bring in Future of Music Coalition [FMC]?
M. Perlman: Peter DiCola [on board of FMC] could be a good option
J.C. Melendez-Torres: Could we expand the mission statement to include legal anthropology?
A. Morcom: We should definitely get a roundtable or panel together for next SEM. Maybe organize it over a listserv like the AAAs. It might also be good link up with the Society for Economic Anthropology [SEA]
S. Garland: There’s been a lot more done on material culture in SEA, but could still be useful to talk with them.
M. Krieger: AAAs are two weeks after us, so timing could be complicated. We should also be talking with British Forum on Ethnomusicology [BFE].
M. Perlman: Further down the line, having a publication would be very useful for outreach. BFE could be a good way to do a special issue.
J. Beaster-Jones: There are rules about what SIGs and Sections can do for speakers. We need to see whether SIGs can sponsor panels.
M. Krieger: Generally SEM pays for the day-long attendance of whoever’s speaking. PMS generally picks someone who is not a member of SEM.
J. Beaster-Jones: We could get at least two panels out of the members of this SIG.
A. Morcom: Someone outside the SIG or discipline could be an interesting respondent.
M. Krieger: Back in Tucson at SEM 2004, there was a panel where they brought in a lawyer who specializes in entertainment law, made for an excellent discussion.
K. Goldschmidt: Experience Music Project is also an interesting model, they often bring people from outside academic disciplines, including industry figures.
M. Krieger: How many people are interested in getting together a panel for next year? [~15 people raise their hands]
M. Perlman: At Austin, could we host a preconference on intellectual property law? Could we host a preconference event of our own?
J. Beaster-Jones: Veit Erlmann is leading the charge on that, they are deciding the preconference theme probably right now.
M. Perlman: A good preconference could entice people to come a day earlier if they are only borderline interested.
M. Krieger: IP in DC [SEM 2016] could be interesting. Who is hosting?
K. Salois: We are not yet sure who is hosting in DC.
K. Goldschmitt: [responding to M. Perlman] The large number of people who came to the Music & Labor preconference made it very successful this year.

DISCUSSION REGARDING STUDYING LARGE MUSIC INDUSTRIES:
M. Perlman: There are many challenges with getting people to “study up”. It could engage the interest of more people, but it also presents its own series of challenges with industry members not wanting to talk.
A. Morcom: There was a great conference in Bristol on small music industries recently.
L. Hooker: There was a good article by David Pruett in Ethnomusicology a few years ago [Winter 2011] on studying popular music industries.
[broad, quick discussion of other individuals who could bring interesting perspectives to this debate, unable to catch most names]
A. Morcom: We should add more things/organizations to the middle bullet of the mission statement. Sociology of Work? Other groups/disciplines?
[final introductions by those who arrived late]

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