Challenge Questions

1. Write 2-3 pages about the ethical challenges, questions, and problems that you have faced in your fieldwork thus far. What decisions did you make, and why did you make them? Feel free to reference Agawu 2003 (Ch. 9). Also consider what ramifications your decisions may have and whether you would have made different decisions had this been a full-scale academic fieldwork project in an unfamiliar country or community, rather than a "first experience" fieldwork project for a class.

2. Do you think it is vital for musical traditions to be preserved at all costs, or is it better in some cases to let a tradition die out rather than to go into their culture and conduct fieldwork which they may not understand and which may be considered taking advantage of them? (See the Agawu quote in Kiri's sample challenge question for an argument that might support the idea of ethnomusicologists taking advantage of their subjects.) Consider Shelemay's work with the Syrian Jews, who were happy to have their music recorded and preserved. Compare this to recordings of isolated communities anywhere in the world who might not understand how the recordings work or what will happen to them. What sort of burden is there on the ethnomusicologist to fully explain what might happen to the recordings in the future, and do you think that fieldworkers always fully explain this to their subjects? Write 2-3 pages.