Poetics ( IF 1.857 ) Pub Date : 2021-01-26 , DOI: 10.1016/j.poetic.2021.101532 Kristina Kolbe
This paper explores to what extent diversity initiatives in the Western classical music sector can be associated with progressive institutional change, or the reproduction of elite formations and processes of ‘race’-making. Drawing from interview and ethnographic data, I examine a self-described ‘intercultural’ children's choir project, which has been developed by an established classical music institution in Berlin. Set against the project's institutional setting and its political context, where the legacies of German imperialism and racialised guestworker policies continue to manifest, I interrogate how diversity is negotiated in the organisational and social workings of the choir. My analysis documents the ambivalent ways in which diversity becomes commodified into a strategic approach to cultural recognition, social mobility and the remaking of white elitism, leading to the continuous construction of racialised others whose (symbolic) labour is extracted for the reproduction of classed and raced hierarchies. The paper therefore shows how diversity initiatives in the Western highbrow sector, even when pushed for with genuine intentions of institutional change and social justice, operate on a hierarchical terrain and risk being turned into an elite-making and ‘race’-making endeavour which secures privileged positions of middle-class whiteness.
中文翻译:
播放系统:德国古典音乐部门多元化项目中的“种族”制造和精英主义
本文探讨了西方古典音乐领域的多元化举措在多大程度上与渐进的制度变革或精英阶层的再生产和“种族”形成过程相关联。根据访谈和民族志数据,我研究了一个自我描述的“跨文化”儿童合唱团项目,该项目是由柏林一家知名的古典音乐机构开发的。针对该项目的制度环境及其政治背景,德国帝国主义的遗产和种族化的客工政策继续显现,我询问合唱团的组织和社会工作如何协商多样性。我的分析记录了将多样性商品化为文化认可的战略方法的矛盾方式,社会流动性和白人精英主义的重塑,导致种族化他人的不断构建,他们的(象征性)劳动被提取用于再生产阶级和种族等级制度。因此,本文展示了西方高级部门的多样性倡议,即使是出于制度变革和社会正义的真正意图而推动的,也是如何在等级制领域运作的,并且有可能变成精英制造和“种族”制造努力,从而确保中产阶级白人的特权地位。