An ethnography of music therapy in a Norwegian prison: Exploring musicking, identity,and change in the carceral setting
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Hjørnevik, Kjetil. 2022. An ethnography of music therapy in a Norwegian prison: Exploring musicking, identity,and change in the carceral setting. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London [Thesis]
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Text (An ethnography of music therapy in a Norwegian prison: Exploring musicking, identity,and change in the carceral setting)
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Abstract or Description
This thesis explores music therapy in a low security prison in Norway from the perspective of a practitioner-researcher. A central theme is how musical participation within a prison milieu interacts with therapeutic, penal and social notions of change.
Existing research largely presents music therapy with prisoners as a forensic mental health intervention, with notions of change primarily linked to cognitive, behavioural or emotional transformation in the individual. In contrast this study examines relationships between musicking as a situated social practice and the ongoing identity work of prisoners from an ecological perspective informed by cultural criminology and Community Music Therapy.
In a pilot study, participant observation, interviews and collection of artefacts were employed to understand music’s roles in the prison and relationships between music therapy and everyday prison life. This developed into a larger ongoing project involving the music therapist and prison inmates exploring music therapy through participatory action research, drawing on musical performance both as a form of action and as an epistemological practice.
The study challenges previous assumptions about the therapist-client relationship as the primary agent for change in music therapy by conceptualizing the prison as a therapeutic music scene. The research presents three vectors of musical change showing how the participants co-created identity and belonging through the musical appropriation of the carceral space, development of ‘musicianhood’, and the creation of musical community. Recent research in criminology emphasises the importance of social belonging and a coherent sense of identity in processes of working towards desistance from crime. The thesis argues for a focus on these factors in music therapy research and practice in prisons, and suggests that a resource-oriented music therapy practice that is aligned with Community Music Therapy principles can facilitate noncoercive forms of personal development congruent with the expressed goals of penal regimes in Scandinavia and beyond.
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Item Type: |
Thesis (Doctoral) |
| Identification Number (DOI): |
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| Additional Information: |
PhD in Music Therapy: Nordoff Robbins / Goldsmiths, University of London |
| Keywords: |
Music therapy, prison, cultural criminology, desistance, ethnography |
| Date: |
28 February 2022 |
| Item ID: |
31564 |
| Date Deposited: |
07 Mar 2022 16:32 |
| Last Modified: |
07 Sep 2022 17:19 |
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URI: |
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