Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

In this paper, I focus on music as homing practice and the ability of instruments to forge palpable connections. I ask how musical instruments help to navigate lives characterized by temporary migration and how people's temporal horizons affect their homing practices.

Paper long abstract

For scientists and academics international mobility has evolved into an integral part of career development. In this paper I ask how objects like musical instruments help to navigate lives that are characterized by temporary migration and short term mobilities. My findings are based on an explorative study, which I developed out of my Ph.D. research on Indian postgraduates in Germany. Many of my interlocutors establish leisure activities, like singing, dancing, music-making and playing cricket in their busy schedules. These practices involve objects like the Sitar. I concentrate on two interconnected capacities of these objects: 1) Their ability to forge "palpable connections" (Povrzanović Frykman and Humbracht 2013) to people and places and thus their ability to establish continuities in mobile lives (Povrzanović Frykman 2016). 2) I focus on the objects' connections to music as "homing practice" (Boccagni 2017; Abels 2019). I argue that focusing on music can unfold a specific perspective on the environmental, emotional and relational factors (Boccagni 2017) that shape experiences of home. Music offers a look into the interactive aspects of homing since it often involves activities that are conducted collectively as in the case of rehearsals and performances.

As my data evolved out of a study with young academics in Germany that often do not plan to stay permanently, I will also ask how the knowledge of being somewhere temporary affects people's homing practices.