ResearchWorks: Whose social impact is it anyway?

The social impact of participatory music projects with marginalised groups is an increasingly active research field, with interest generally centred on understanding the potential—or lack thereof—of musical activities to advance social justice. Addressing a range of social issues, the vast majority of research in this area analyses the effects of musical participation on members of marginalised communities, often identifying tangible impacts for those involved in these projects.

But what does this focus obscure? This presentation draws on interdisciplinary research with Sex Worker’s Opera, a sex worker-led community musical theatre project, to problematise contemporary approaches to studying the social impact of making music within marginalised communities. It proposes that, beyond asking how projects impact participants, we should be investigating how projects enable participants to engineer their own impacts on society more broadly.

The presentation highlights the activist possibilities of participatory music projects, the significance of marginalised-led artistic activism within social justice struggles, and the value of including affects—as well as effects—in assessments of social impact. Overall, it calls for recognition of participatory music projects as potential sites of artistic activism, and of the social impact that participants, through their creative work, have on others.

Speaker: Imogen Flower

Imogen Flower is currently finishing her doctorate at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, funded by the Guildhall-SIMM studentship. Her research explores the spaces created within community performance projects for marginalised-led activism, the ways in which members of marginalised communities might make use of these spaces, and the resources and structures that need to be in place for them to do so. Imogen’s PhD investigates the potential of community musical theatre as a form of artistic activism through a case study of the grassroots musical theatre project Sex Worker’s Opera. Positioning Sex Worker’s Opera within the context of sex worker activism, she unpacks how both the creative process of devising a musical and the performance itself complement more conventional forms of advocacy work.

Following a BA in Music at the University of Cambridge and an MA Music in Development at SOAS, University of London, Imogen’s focus has become increasingly interdisciplinary. She is interested in what can happen at the points where community music and applied theatre intercept, and the learnings—both practical and theoretical—that might be drawn from each of these disciplines into the other.

Guildhall School’s ResearchWorks is a programme of events centred around the School’s research activity, bringing together staff, students and guests of international standing. We run regular events throughout the term intended to share the innovative research findings of the School and its guests with students, staff and the public.