Why we do what we do/ taking advantage of guaranteed high speed internet

I often have people ask me what exactly I’m doing in Ethiopia. The simple answer is I’m doing fieldwork for my master’s thesis, which is basically that music plays an important role in the act of pilgrimage.

Then people ask, “Well what’s your Master’s degree in?”
To which I respond, “Musicology, but with an emphasis on ethnomusicology.”

I get mixed reactions, ranging from interest or genuine curiosity to curt and/or slightly confused “hmphs.”

To some extent, it’s understandable. It’s not something like, say mathematics or biology, long established and, at least in our culture, firmly viewed as a respectable and worthwhile field of study. In fact, the sciences in general in the West are regarded with a reverence so high that many equate science with knowledge.

But science is not knowledge, it is a method, and while unquestionably useful, worthwhile, and valuable as an epistemological approach, it is not infallible. It is full of theories, and through the centuries we can see how what was cutting edge scientifically in the 19th century (such as for example, how we conceive an atom) has now been refined, and we can expect that what we take for fact today might be viewed as archaic a century from now.

This is the whole point of science- to test and refine ideas to bring us closer to the truth. But we should’t confuse current scientific thinking with absolute truth.

In fact, some scientists, like Popper and Feynman, stressed the importance of trying to disprove ideas, rather than to “prove” something. Unfortunately, research funding being as it is, there is often and agenda associated with experimentation that favors “proving” an idea rather than attempting to disprove.

In any case, science is an awesome tool for understanding the world around us. One of many.

Another equally important tool is testimony. Think about it- almost everything we know, we know because someone told us- whether we read it in a book, heard it on the news, or learned a lesson from our parents’ words, the bulk of our knowledge rests on communicative messages of those around us.

The goals of scientists and ethnographers are very similar (to understand, to gain knowledge), and differ primarily in method. Ethnography heavily utilizes testimony to learn more about the world around us- to bring us closer to the truth, to gain knowledge, to understand. Music is one way of communicating things, listening a method of discovery.

Actually, the entire constructed world is sending us messages. Take food for example- What does a box of chicken nuggets that come in a container specially designed and mass produced to hold the dipping sauce (to allow for dipping ease for an individual while driving) tell us about culture as opposed to an Ethiopian restaurant, in which separating orders might cause confusion for the wait staff (eating is a community activity), and food is served what we call family style, with everyone using their injera to scoop up a little bit of the communal food?

If we can learn something about culture by the way the way we box our chicken nuggets, how much can we learn by exploring music and the way it functions in society?

So what am I doing? I am traveling to another country, one I have studied and read books about, but still have a lot to learn about. I am going to be meeting with priests, musicians, and others involved with the Ethiopian Church. I am going to listen, record conversations, and their music, which together are forms of testimony, in order to seek truth and greater understanding.