Toward a Development Discourse Inclusive of Music

This article argues for a reconceptualization of the orthodox development discourse to consider music as a form of powerful cultural expression. Elucidating the way in which musical cultural expression is an important aspect of the rich lives of those who experience development, the author illustrates the way in which orthodox development conceals culture and musical expression through nonrecognition. Drawing from Santos' sociology of absences to explain the way in which culture and music have been made actively invisible by the orthodox development discourse, the author makes a case for engaging with music in order to make explicit the limitations of rational, individualized, economic-centric development. The author argues that the practice of development is ultimately contingent upon deploying nonmaterial and nonmarket epistemes through its coercive governance. Through the use of historic examples, the author shows that music has been both a means of emancipation from domination but also instrumentalized as a tool for domination. By attempting to deny the relevance of culture and music, orthodox development is shown to contain a central contradiction, one that points to the need to account for a more inclusive conceptualization of politics.