Music, Mattering, and Criminalized Young Men
Exploring Music Elicitation as a Feminist Arts-Based Research and Intervention Tool
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Emerald Publishing Limited
Published:31st May '24
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Music can act as a powerful means of communication. Chronicling the first application of music elicitation in the Balkans, Music, Mattering, and Criminalized Young Men delves into its use as a social research method, pedagogical tool, and youth work intervention.
Grounded in feminist principles, Jade Levell’s analysis provides a deep exploration and articulation of this method as a compelling narrative device which empowers participants, in this case men in prison and on probation in Albania, throughout the research process. Framing music elicitation and creation as professional listening tools, Levell develops the theory of ‘sonic mattering’ to explore the role music plays in the lives of young people as they seek to establish their place in the world. Situating music elicitation as a method of the upmost importance, chapters demonstrate its potential to disrupt traditional power imbalances by positioning the participant as expert. Drawing on a context of international development, Levell demonstrates music elicitation’s effectiveness in boosting participant engagement, building trust over a short period of time, and encouraging participants to share stories of their marginalization.
A cutting-edge study grounded in a new feminist arts-based research and intervention tool, Music, Mattering, and Criminalized Young Men propounds an effective new methodology for social research and fundamental human engagement.
This series has been renamed to “Emerald Studies in Culture, Crime, Criminal Justice and the Arts” effective for 2025 publications onward.
This is a reminder that in the melodies of the marginalized, we might find the keys to understanding and change.
-- Iris Luarasi, Tirana University, AlbaniaFor a discipline so focused on the letter of the law, thinking with music about 'crime', as this book does, opens up our ears to what our eyes can’t see - inviting us to rethink how, why and who criminological research is undertaken for.
-- Lambros Fatsis, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, City, University of London, UK‘A powerful demonstration of the methodological capacity of music to evoke memory, a sense of mattering and a means of making space for those we work with to share their narratives with agency. Music, Mattering and Criminalized Young Men is sufficiently detailed to provide a how-to for replicating multi-agency research projects, focused on music elicitation amongst criminalized people. In some senses, this is a story about navigating systems and gatekeeping in unfamiliar terrain to explore the constraints of masculinity. Yet it is in the interweaving of individual narratives with those of Albania’s history, and in the stories and experience of the participants, that the book is most potently compelling.’
-- Kate Herrity, Kings College, University of Cambridge, UKGroundbreaking research], particularly for front-line professionals in Albania as it highlighted the need for a collaborative approach for better understanding and eliciting critical information from youth. Furthermore, it introduced the importance of allowing youth 'to be heard' and not questioned, and feel that they are in control of their storyline, as a mechanism for better understanding their struggles with trauma, stereotypes, societal pressures, and various other factors that pushed or pulled them towards a life of crime.
-- Redion Qirjazi, CEO of Mary Ward Loreto Foundation and Team Leader, Reconnecting Albanian Youth and Society –ISBN: 9781837537693
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 15mm
Weight: 351g
184 pages