Since immemorial time, active engagement with music or ‘musicking’ has been characteristic of the human condition, not only enabling individual self-expression but also positively affecting many dimensions of life, such as the social, the psychological, the affective, and the physical.
In recent years, the bodily dimension of musical engagement has gained increasing interest, leading to a deepened understanding of the body’s fundamental role in musical understanding and sense-making, expression and communication, and creativity. Findings on the embodied and dynamic nature of human interaction with music indicate that it is an energizing and empowering activity. Not surprisingly, music has repeatedly been found to promote well-being and flourishing across the lifespan.
In the wake of music’s empowering potential, practitioners, social workers, and researchers have undertaken a diversity of initiatives to develop, implement and investigate ways of using engagement with music in working with vulnerable groups (e.g., elderly, refugees, disabled). Findings often point to the positive impact on the different dimensions of life.
However, the fundamental role of the body in musical interactions has seldom been linked to the power of music to promote well-being and flourishing.
This Research Topic aims to bring together examples of theoretical, practice-based, and empirical research, and critical contributions, that address the bodily dimension of musicking in working with vulnerable persons.
This includes manuscripts (Original Research, Hypothesis & Theory, Review, Perspective, Conceptual Analysis, and Opinion) that address a.o. the following preliminary questions in various ways:
- What kind of experiences are considered meaningful by participants and what is the role of the body in such experiences?
- How do facilitating musicians integrate the bodily dimension in working with vulnerable groups?
- What are sound and robust methodologies when investigating the power of bodily engagement with music in view of promoting flourishing?
- What pedagogical implications can emerge from empirical and experience-based perspectives and insights?
- What role does (a specific social or cultural) context play in operationalizing the concept of flourishing in working with vulnerable groups through music and movement?
Contributions following, for example, 4E cognition (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive), dynamical systems theory, ecological psychology, bioecological perspective on human development, positive psychology, social psychology, critical psychology, and ‘praxial’ approaches are welcome in the perspective of bridging the gap between theoretical, practice-based, quantitative and qualitative research.
Since immemorial time, active engagement with music or ‘musicking’ has been characteristic of the human condition, not only enabling individual self-expression but also positively affecting many dimensions of life, such as the social, the psychological, the affective, and the physical.
In recent years, the bodily dimension of musical engagement has gained increasing interest, leading to a deepened understanding of the body’s fundamental role in musical understanding and sense-making, expression and communication, and creativity. Findings on the embodied and dynamic nature of human interaction with music indicate that it is an energizing and empowering activity. Not surprisingly, music has repeatedly been found to promote well-being and flourishing across the lifespan.
In the wake of music’s empowering potential, practitioners, social workers, and researchers have undertaken a diversity of initiatives to develop, implement and investigate ways of using engagement with music in working with vulnerable groups (e.g., elderly, refugees, disabled). Findings often point to the positive impact on the different dimensions of life.
However, the fundamental role of the body in musical interactions has seldom been linked to the power of music to promote well-being and flourishing.
This Research Topic aims to bring together examples of theoretical, practice-based, and empirical research, and critical contributions, that address the bodily dimension of musicking in working with vulnerable persons.
This includes manuscripts (Original Research, Hypothesis & Theory, Review, Perspective, Conceptual Analysis, and Opinion) that address a.o. the following preliminary questions in various ways:
- What kind of experiences are considered meaningful by participants and what is the role of the body in such experiences?
- How do facilitating musicians integrate the bodily dimension in working with vulnerable groups?
- What are sound and robust methodologies when investigating the power of bodily engagement with music in view of promoting flourishing?
- What pedagogical implications can emerge from empirical and experience-based perspectives and insights?
- What role does (a specific social or cultural) context play in operationalizing the concept of flourishing in working with vulnerable groups through music and movement?
Contributions following, for example, 4E cognition (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive), dynamical systems theory, ecological psychology, bioecological perspective on human development, positive psychology, social psychology, critical psychology, and ‘praxial’ approaches are welcome in the perspective of bridging the gap between theoretical, practice-based, quantitative and qualitative research.
