From Native Bamboo to Indigenous Flute: Applied Ecomusicology and Sustainability in Highland Flute Making in the Bolivian Andes

• Applicant: Sebastian Hachmeyer, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Musicology
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 530324575

My research project aims to explore and implement concrete sustainability strategies in highland flute making in the Bolivian Andes with regard to the use of native woody bamboos. For this purpose, central work in natural resource management is used to include aspects of ecology and environmental protection, such as commons research, ecological niche theory and habitat models. Based on analytical and theoretical preparative research, the research project will use theories and methods of applied ecomusicology to focus on the conceptual exploration and practical implementation of concrete strategies and approaches for action that aim to achieve more sustainability in bamboo use, in highland flute making and in the Andean Aymara music culture in general. The central aim of my research project is to explore and implement concrete sustainability strategies in highland flute making in the Bolivian Andes, in cooperation with central environmental, cultural-political, musicultural and social actors ("stakeholders" such as flute makers, bamboo collectors, musicians, governmental and non-governmental institutions, etc.). I pay special attention to musical bamboos and a sustainable bamboo use, which is considered the basis for future socio-economic and musicultural transformations and dynamics within the Andean music culture. From my perspective as an ethnomusicologist, human ecologist and ecomusicologist, I wish to engage in a concrete musicultural context to promote sustainable structures in highland flute making and to contribute to more sustainability in the Andean music culture in the sense of the cultural dimension of sustainable development. In doing so, this research project furthermore serves as a practical and theoretical model for other regions and musical cultures with instrument making traditions, for example also for musical instrument making within Germany. Regarding the further development of sustainability research in ethnomusicology, the research project aims to engage in a transdisciplinary research process, which imports the understanding of transdisciplinary sciences and sustainability research into applied ethnomusicology and ecomusicology. Transdisciplinary sustainability research is primarily concerned with problem solving against the background of sustainability as a normative guiding principle.

• DFG Programme: WBP Position