Building Collective Futures: Communities Thriving Through Music

Building Collective Futures: Communities Thriving Through Music will take place from September 26th to 29th, on College Avenue Campus, the University of Regina (Treaty 4). The conference will be hosted and organized by Dr. Charity Marsh, Director of the Humanities Research Institute and Professor in Creative Technologies and Design. It will also serve as the annual meeting for The International Association of the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) Canada.

We live in a time of uncertainty: multiple theatres of war and conflict, refugee movements across the globe, rampant technological change, political polarization, cultural upheaval, and a global climate crisis threaten individual and collective futures at every turn. At this unprecedented point in time, how can we envision and build thriving, alternative futures? And for whom? Does Canada have a special place in all of this: how do we transition from the inequities of our colonial relationships (to Indigenous populations and to the earth) to building respectful, inclusive, and sustainable futures? What role(s) do(es) popular music play in such projects? Is popular music sometimes, also, a part of the problem? How does digitality help or hinder efforts to elevate humanity through musicking? How do new methodologies provide insight in changing times? How are musicians working collectively to build thriving futures?

Building Collective Futures: Communities Thriving Through Music is the theme and challenge of this conference. Across scholarship and practice, the pursuit of sustainability has become paramount. However, mere sustainability is no longer sufficient. Instead, we ask what musical futures would sound like if they focused on thriving collectively. As we envision a future where sustainability extends beyond mere survival to encompass vibrant, thriving communities, music emerges as a powerful force for change.

For this conference, scholarship and music will be presented that works to shed light on how music can and does play a role in building sustainable futures in challenging times. The research, film screenings, workshops, and performances of this conference will bring together innovative approaches, interdisciplinary theoretical framings, and a range of methods from across popular music studies and beyond to explore the themes of cultural sustainability, sovereignty, digital futures, thriving local, regional, and global music scenes, and ecological resistance in relation to the possibilities for building collective futures.