Art, music, and sports can themselves be forms of resistance and at the same time can display evidence of historical resistance. A protest, a cultural statement, the overthrow of a regime—all can be found in, and at times have even been started by, works of art, music, and sports. From the ancient Romans to professional American football players, people have used these mediums to fight for their causes and to ensure that the histories of their plights are recorded in the archives of time.
Art, music, and sports have told the stories of people since prehistoric times. Ingrained in the human experience, these mediums have been used to establish cultural and national identity. The images in art, the words of song, and the traditions of sport have had significant impacts on established norms and senses of personal and group identity. These aspects of the human condition are so foundational that each has been used as a form of resistance. Art, music, and sports have each contributed to the development of people and societies in important ways, and can each reveal important aspects of both past and current cultures.
Mini-Fieldwork Activity
A Study of Ethnomusicology
Music is one of the most expressive and diverse forms of art. For this activity, do the following:
- Review ethnomusicological study techniques.
- Conduct your own ethnomusicological fieldwork. This can be done by interacting with musicians, attending a music event virtually or in person, or interviewing audience members at a musical performance. Interview both musicians and audience members about the meaning of the music. What did they hear? How did it make them feel? What did it make them want to do? Record the results of your interviews.
- Additionally, record your own response to the music. What did you hear? How did it make you feel? What does it make you want to do?
- Collect the information and write a 3–5-page comparative reflection paper on what you learned from your interviews and how they compare and contrast to your own experience and discoveries.
All music-making activities are appropriate, whether a formal or informal concert, a street performance, or gospel singing in church. You should maintain a field journal to record data, observations, and analysis.
Research and Literature Review Activity
- Pick two (2) different examples of visual art, from the same time period but different socioeconomic microcultures, to compare and contrast.
-
Write a 3–5-page summary paper in which you do the following:
- Identify people and/or studies that have reported on anthropological finds relevant to the images you selected.
- Describe the evolution of the art form you are analyzing from an early time.
- Explain how the anthropological studies you cite compare with other anthropological study approaches.
- Address how the art studied is an evolutionary example of the human experience.
- Evaluate what you perceive to be the future of the art as it continues to develop and evolve in future generations.
The content of this course has been taken from the free Anthropology textbook by Openstax