Sweers & Ross/Cultural Mapping and Musical Diversity, Introduction Part II

Part II focuses on the interrelation of music performance and landscape by addressing another central issue that were taken up by UNESCO-related discourses – the so-called “cultural landscapes.” Having been strongly interconnected with debates on the interaction of humans and nature, the UNESCO concept is likewise strongly intertwined with the concept of sustainability. Starting out with a linguistic elucidation of central terminological expressions, such as environment, scenery, and sustainability, this introduction then specifically discusses the polarized division between a human-less environment and a culturally-shaped landscape. Consequently, the four articles of this part not only each focus on different landscapes, but also provide examples of an in-depth study of different human-music-environment relations and interaction processes.