tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post7033177111092615486..comments2023-08-20T10:48:55.697-04:00Comments on Sustainable Music: America's Best Idea?Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-24600850630252444652010-05-05T10:34:33.536-04:002010-05-05T10:34:33.536-04:00Jeff, this is a beautiful piece with deep connecti...Jeff, this is a beautiful piece with deep connections to so many issues I care deeply about. It makes me wonder about the essentially exploitative stories we tell ourselves about our relationship with 'resources'- a kind of font of prone goods, renewable or not - versus a term that gets talked about a lot in the study of indigenous religion (but increasingly in environmental anthropology in general): lifeway. As I understand it, this is a way of talking about human society as 'knit-up' (as Julian of Norwich would say) with the 'resources' we 'consume' rather than as a valued byproduct of our use of those resources - a word with which to destroy the much vaunted nature/culture dyad. This is some of the power I see in religious narratives, since I wonder if they might be tools by which to craft alternate, local, and contingent stories of participation rather than objectification. In the case of old-time music, I think of us as producers rather than a consumers, but that is dependent on old-time being a part of our lifeway: getting together to make the music. In the case of mountains (or blueberry fields), my identity with the mountain is dependent on my lifeway being bound up with the mountain rather than as a 'consumer' of mountains as a visitor. Transitioning from valuing the 'object' of the music or the mountain to valuing the 'lifeway' itself is more difficult, perhaps (and opens up other cans of worms, I know), but maybe is the only way that 'conservation' can be truly sustainable for either music or mountains.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com