In the latest issue of News from Everywhere, the JRAAS Newsletter, we explored the vital role of cultural sustainability in our work. Beyond mere preservation, cultural sustainability seeks to keep culture relevant and impactful in contemporary society. This edition features an exclusive interview with Dr. Catherine Grant, a leading expert in the field. Join us as she shares her insights on what cultural sustainability is, its main challenges, and her advice for young researchers. Read the full interview below.
Catherine Grant holds a PhD in Philosophy and is a renowned music researcher. She lectures at Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University in Australia. With research interests in music and its cultural contexts and in cultural sustainability, Catherine has a strong track record of international collaborations on projects to promote culture through music, including in countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, Vanuatu, Indonesia and Brazil.
Her significant contributions have been recognized through prestigious awards, including an Endeavour Australia Research Fellowship in 2015, and research funding from the British Museum (2019) for her work in Cambodia. Moreover, Catherine was honoured with an Australian Future Justice medal for her research, advocacy, and activism on cultural sustainability. Her dedicated work on musical heritage and cultural sustainability has been recognized and, since 2021, she has served on the grant assessment committee for the Endangered Material Knowledge Programme of the British Museum in England.
How do you personally define cultural sustainability?
I like to define cultural sustainability as the circumstance of individuals and groups of people having the freedom and capacity to make their own choices about which cultural practices they engage in (and don’t engage in), in which ways, and to which degree. Threats to cultural sustainability, then, are whatever inhibits those free choices. Conceiving of cultural sustainability like this - namely, in terms of human agencies and freedoms - takes the focus off the situation of specific cultural practices, adopting a more holistic and human-centred perspective.
What inspired you to dedicate your career to exploring this concept within the context of music?
I am a musician by background. In my twenties and thirties, then working for a time in Europe and Asia as a teacher of English, I developed a keen interest in (and love of) diverse languages, musics, and cultures. When I returned home to Australia, I had the opportunity to become involved in the international research project "Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures", which explored the dynamics of music sustainability. During my work on that project, I realized that for decades sociolinguists had been working with communities to support strong futures for languages - and that we could learn a lot from them about how to support other cultural expressions too, like music. This led to my doctorate, and ultimately my book "Music Endangerment: How Language Maintenance Can Help" (2014). I haven't looked back!
Your work spans multiple countries, including Cambodia, Vietnam, and Vanuatu, and has earned you prestigious awards. What are the contributions of your research to preserving and promoting musical heritage in these regions?
For me, it's been the greatest joy and privilege to work directly with musicians and their communities. To be honest, I've noticed that, sometimes, merely the attention of an outsider can stimulate greater local interest in a tradition! Perhaps I'll just share one story, to illustrate. In 2019 I was fortunate to receive a British Museum grant to work with a team of Cambodian researchers to document the endangered musical instrument "Angkuoch". To the best of our knowledge, only one elderly man knew how to still make Angkuoch instruments out of iron. The Angkouch that "Ta" (Grandpa) Bin Song made for us (so we could document the process) was the first he'd made in over 50 years, since before the Khmer Rouge genocide of the 1970s. Since our project, Ta Song has gone on to make several further Angkuoch. Local youngsters have become curious about what he's doing. Some community workshops have been held on how to make and play Angkuoch. All this makes me very happy! You can read more about the documentation project on the British Museum's website. (And the instrument Ta Song made for us? The British Museum acquired it for its collection!)
And how do you foster appreciation for the cultures of those regions in other parts of the world?
In situations where musicians and their communities may benefit from wider promotion of their cultural practices or activities - and where they also want that promotion - I try to use a range of practical means (in addition to the usual academic ones), including project websites, blog posts, media articles, radio and newspaper interviews, textbooks, podcast episodes, public talks, and more! Where appropriate, I like to invite a musician or other community member to join me as author of those outputs. Here's a little example about Vanuatu's "Water Music": an online textbook entry, co-authored with my community collaborator Sandy Sur from Vanuatu and my university colleagues Maeve and Ash. Recently, I received a wonderful message from a university teacher in the USA who said a student in her class, who was originally from Vanuatu, had been so happy to discover this piece and learn about a cultural practice from her own country!
Since your field of work is dedicated to cultural sustainability, what do you see as the biggest challenges in this area today?
To my view, the biggest threats to cultural sustainability are, somewhat ironically, not those directly related to culture at all. The rise of populist governments, war and conflict, forced migration, and the climate crisis are all examples of complex and intersecting phenomena that are having devastating impacts on the ability of people to freely practise and maintain their cultural practices in ways of their own choosing. This has implications for how we support cultural sustainability: it suggests that we need to look beyond our own field of culture, and consider the social, political, economic, environmental, and other factors that are at play in cultural sustainability. That may seem a big task, but it also vastly expands the range of possible strategies for supporting cultural sustainability. It will require interdisciplinary approaches.
In your point of view, what is the role of cultural sustainability in building a better future?
The key argument of my forthcoming collaboratively-authored book Sounding Good is that cultural sustainability and social justice are deeply interconnected, and that this presents a wonderful opportunity. Around the world, culture-bearers and groups of people are advancing the strength of their cultural practices, with remarkable outcomes that are not only cultural, but also social (and environmental, economic, political, and in a range of other areas). I hope those of us working in the area of cultural sustainability increasingly embrace a 'future justice' orientation in our work. That means carefully considering - and celebrating - how cultural sustainability initiatives could also move us closer to a socially just world. As I write in the conclusion to Sounding Good, "buried in the nexus of cultural sustainability and social justice lies a magnificent opportunity: to capitalize on their interconnectedness for the dual social and cultural benefit of present and future generations".
What current projects in the scope of cultural sustainability are you involved in?
I'm always juggling multiple projects, and am currently working on community-based projects with Indigenous groups in Sumba (Indonesia) and Vanuatu. But perhaps I should share with you a little more about the project I just mentioned, Sounding Good: Advancing Cultural Sustainability and Social Justice through Music, which I've carried out in collaboration with nine incredible musicians and cultural leaders around the world. Our aim is to draw attention to these close relationships between cultural sustainability and matters of social justice - from the climate crisis, to forced migration, to poverty. I also wanted to celebrate my collaborators' amazing projects that are advancing cultural sustainability and improving lives. I'm excited that our book will be out with Oxford University Press late this year (see the website for more info)!
As we are young researchers in a changing world, what would be your message to us?
I'm reluctant to hand out advice: I am always still learning, myself! But I guess I could offer this: By not being afraid to bring your personal values to your scholarship, by considering how you can enable and amplify the visibility of those who are marginalized, by taking environmental and ethical considerations into account in everything that you do, you will forge new knowledge that will lead us to a more equitable, safe, prosperous, and wonderful world. The future lies with you! I wish you all every success in your research endeavours, and thank you so much for allowing me to introduce myself to you!
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