Music for social impact: practitioners’ contexts, work, and beliefs

Introduction

The project aims to examine the growing number of participatory music-making activities being offered to groups defined by factors such as their social needs or deprivation. These Socially Impactful Music Making (SIMM) activities focus on marginalized or excluded groups such as in regions of poverty, conflict or social disruption, mental or physical impairment, people in prison or those who are homeless, and assist participants to perform music for its intrinsic value, as well as helping them to achieve defined social goals such as inclusion, empowerment, community building or activism.

The project wants to provide an in-depth analysis of the field from the perspective of the practitioners who deliver the work, by analysing how their backgrounds, training, and beliefs affect the way they carry out SIMM activity and assess and improve its effectiveness.

Research is being conducted across four countries: Belgium, Finland, the UK and Columbia.