Journal Articles by Chrysi Kyratsou
Music and Arts in Action, 2025
This article overviews the affordances of music education among (forced) migrant youth, and inves... more This article overviews the affordances of music education among (forced) migrant youth, and investigates the potentiality of inclusivity through its entanglements with practices of sharing and senses of belonging. It serves as an Introduction to the Thematic Issue 'Music Education among Refugee and Migrant Youth: Including, Sharing, Belonging'.
Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, 2025
This introduction to the round table attempts an overview of the conceptualizations of 'voice' an... more This introduction to the round table attempts an overview of the conceptualizations of 'voice' and 'agency'. It maintains a dialogic balance between the novel insights offered by each contribution's topic and the authors' distinct angles, and current debates around voice and agency. The introduction interweaves philosophical, anthropological, and, of course, (ethno)musicological approaches to the vocal phenomenon, highlighting its complex dimensions as well as its dense intersubjective meaningfulness. If 'listening' is the counterpart of 'voicing', integral to its very materialization, 'vocal agency' urges us to think beyond the interconnection between the vocalizer and the listener, shifting our focus of attention to the capacity of the voice to offer insights into and through itself.
Citizenship Teaching & Learning
This article focuses on the potential of in-group music lessons to foster musical citizenship. It... more This article focuses on the potential of in-group music lessons to foster musical citizenship. It further discusses the relation between musical citizenship and conventional citizenship and shows how musical citizenship reorientates our thoughts towards citizenship, particularly in the light of the recent pandemic. The discussion is based upon reflection on semi-structured interviews conducted during my ethnographic fieldwork research on musicking among refugees sheltering in reception centres. The discussion is framed with approaches to citizenship and musical citizenship. The discussion is structured in three parts. First, I conceptualize my interlocutors’ current ‘in limbo’ status. Second, I show how music learning in-group fosters musical citizenship and helps navigate exclusions. Third, the attention shifts on how music learning was impacted by the way that the lockdown was implemented as a measure to limit the spread of the pandemic, highlighting the inclusivity of ‘musical ci...
Anthropology of East Europe Review, 2021
The article focuses on the local music and dance of Zoupanochoria, a cluster of villages lying on... more The article focuses on the local music and dance of Zoupanochoria, a cluster of villages lying on the boundaries of the different geographic areas of the Greek parts of Epirus and Macedonia. Identifying music with either side of the boundary results in contestations over locals’ identity and sparks dispute over symbolic belonging to distinct musical traditions and their geographic origin. The research shows that musicians blend elements (tunes, rhythms, instrumentation) of both music traditions. Based on the repertories performed in two community festivities, the article relates their different structure and organization with alternative expressions of belonging and shows the resolution of dispute and discontent that the local dance Lotzia provides. This border situation resonates metaphorically with the Greek tradition to name the newborn baby after one of the grandparents, thus signifying bonds with the family. However, highlighting bonds with a specific part of the family can eng...
International Modern Perspectives in Academia and Community Today, 2021
Welcome to this, the first issue of the International Modern Perspectives on Academia and Communi... more Welcome to this, the first issue of the International Modern Perspectives on Academia and Community Today (IMPACT) Journal. In creating this Journal and producing this first issue we have proven that multidisciplinary working is possible. Moreover, we have shown that as academics, we have the power to challenge the norms and work in innovative ways within the contexts of our institutions. Thinking and working in innovative ways reflects on our practices as we reimagine our work and role in working with the community. Through the creation of a multidisciplinary Journal, we intend to provide a platform that will not only host approaches used in various disciplines but will also act as a merging point by putting forward perspectives from the communities alongside academic work. In doing so, we hope to promote new forms of dialogue, which have the potential to generate new research directions, and help cement the notion that academia and community are intertwined rather than separate en...
Arts
This article discusses the twofold role of music as a means to manifest border-induced (cultural)... more This article discusses the twofold role of music as a means to manifest border-induced (cultural) difference and simultaneously foster alternative modes of belonging. The author draws on her ethnographic research, consisting of participant observation, desktop research, and interviews, and reflects on her auto-ethnographic recordings of engaging with refugee musicians. The discussion unfolds around vignettes that exemplify moments of musical encounters among refugees and between refugees and people from the host society. The vignettes are narrated from the refugee interlocutors’ point of view, who are engaged in the musicking instances as listeners and musicians. The article discusses how they devise music to cope with their estrangement from home and to articulate narratives of belonging. It illuminates how refugees challenge stereotyped representations of themselves, reinforcing the terms under which they can become “visible” and “audible.” Finally, the article argues that refugee...
Critique of Anthropology, Dec 9, 2024
The Introduction to this Special Issue, themed ‘Navigating Hurdles and Reconfiguring (Im)mobiliti... more The Introduction to this Special Issue, themed ‘Navigating Hurdles and Reconfiguring (Im)mobilities in Times of Corona’ departs from a reflection over what constitutes a ‘crisis’, and accordingly reflects over the notions ‘essential’ and ‘existential’ that have been devised extensively in research, as well as in official and colloquial discourses, to describe diverse types of mobilities. The Introduction engages with the concepts of ‘crisis’ and ‘emergency’ that set the tone of the social reality during the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, it aims to conceptualize the paradigm shift of (im)mobilities reinforced at the outbreak of the pandemic within the wider debates around ‘crisis’ and ‘emergency’, further scrutinizing the official and colloquial discourses assumed during the pandemic. Accordingly, the Introduction discusses the concepts of essential, non-essential, and existential mobilities as understood amidst and outside of the critical times of the pandemic. In doing so, it offers a theoretical basis from which the discussion of the Special Issue departs. Finally, the Introduction engages with the concept of ‘pace’ as a theoretical lens to understand (im)mobilities, and proposes the concept of ‘reconfiguration’, as a tool that enables us to focus on the agentive actors’ discourses and practices to reconstitute a meaningful life, and navigate the (im)mobility regimes forged amidst the critical times of corona.
In conversation with... by Chrysi Kyratsou
International modern perspectives on academia and community today, Oct 3, 2022
This interview was conducted by Chrysi Kyratsou and discusses the experience of the Science Shop ... more This interview was conducted by Chrysi Kyratsou and discusses the experience of the Science Shop in facilitating partnerships across academia and community and making sure that they are mutually beneficial and sustainable through time. At the core of the initiative is the "Knowledge-Exchange" between the partners at a community-engaged project, which lends its name to the initiative as such. Dr Emma McKenna outlines the basic principles that have shaped the work undertaken by the Science Shop. She explains how the initiative stemmed from radical ideas in the 1960s, to transform largely understandings of the role of academia in addressing current problems of community, under the scope of what the community really needs. Dr McKenna elaborates on the potentials and challenges that underpin community-engaged work. She outlines the different types of partnerships that can be shaped, how the objectives are set, and the criteria which deem a partnership successful. She presents the roles of the different stakeholders who participate in a community-engaged project, and situates the activity of Science Shop between local focus and international contexts, identifying the respective potentials and challenges. Finally, Dr Emma McKenna reflects on the contribution of the Science Shop in realising Sustainable Development Goals, and sketches how further improvement and development should be understood and envisaged. IMPACT Journal met with Dr Emma McKenna on 5 August 2021 to discuss the experience of Science Shop in ensuring sustainability in community engagement, as well as the vision of building a sustainable world and what the role of universities can be.
Book Reviews by Chrysi Kyratsou
International Migration Review, 2023
Alessandra Ciucci's The Voice of the Rural: Music, Poetry, and Masculinity Among Migrant Moroccan... more Alessandra Ciucci's The Voice of the Rural: Music, Poetry, and Masculinity Among Migrant Moroccan Men in Umbria, provides in-depth and novel insights into an underexplored topic that merges the notions of rurality, masculinity, and belonging upon the canvas of the role of music in migration. This book is of particular interest to ethnomusicologists, anthropologists focusing on migration, music, aesthetics and transnational belonging, as well as interdisciplinary music and migration scholars. The extensive ethnographic accounts that illustrate the author's experience of the field and her interlocutors' testimonies of their lifeworlds, and the style of writing that enables this dialoguing perspective of the topic make the book an enjoyable read. The insights offered are also of interest to anybody wishing to study and explore the potential for writing creatively and amplifying the (marginalized) interlocutors' voices. The book's discussion evolves around the notion of rurality, or l-ʿarubiya in Arabic. Rurality refers to the imaginaries of Moroccan migrants maintained through music and poetry of traditional vocal genres of Morocco. It also refers to the landscape and political economy of Umbria, with a specific focus on Alta Valle del Tevere that "hosts" Moroccan migrants, framing their everyday life, labor conditions, and visions of belonging. Thus, it enables the navigation in-between the two locations and bridges the migration-induced ruptures in migrants' social lives. Considering professional musicians' discourses about the music they perform, and listeners' discourses about their everyday music engagements, Ciucci addresses a largely neglected aspect of migrant music involvements. Incorporating formal and vernacular discourses around the aesthetics and the sonic qualities that determine the value and meaningfulness of performed and recorded musical genres, Ciucci enriches the relevant literature by illuminating the dense interconnections between place, self, longing, and belonging as sensed and articulated through music.
Blogs by Chrysi Kyratsou
The last time I saw my friends, I was invited to their place inside the refugee camp for lunch. I... more The last time I saw my friends, I was invited to their place inside the refugee camp for lunch. It was long before the introduction of coronavirus quarantine. When I entered their container, I bent to hug and kiss them on both cheeks, as we always did when we met. However, they kept me at a distance: "Excuse me my dear! I'm afraid of coronavirus. Would you like alcohol for your hands?" Their �rst act of welcoming was antiseptic to protect themselves and me.' (Chrysi's �eldwork diary, 19/2/2020) The protagonists of the vignette, refugees in a Greek reception centre, understood the threat of coronavirus through family and friends in countries affected by the virus. Awareness of the threat Keeping social distance and keeping them out -
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Journal Articles by Chrysi Kyratsou
In conversation with... by Chrysi Kyratsou
Book Reviews by Chrysi Kyratsou
Blogs by Chrysi Kyratsou