Valuing and evaluating musical practice as research in ethnomusicology and its implications for research assessment

In this article, we argue that ethnomusicology holds valuable epistemic insights for considering how to measure and evaluate research for academics, as well as for research policy and management professionals. We focus on two notable instances of standardised national research assessment frameworks: the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF), and Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) and identify the advantages of practice as research models for music research by considering the benefits of ethnomusicology’s reflexive and relativist methodologies to formal research assessment processes. To support our argument, we refer to published case studies of ethnomusicological research that reach beyond Western practice and thought to highlight the advantages recognising practice as research as a more inclusive modality of original knowledge production. We call upon ethnomusicologists to pro-actively engage with the formal processes of research assessment to make them more equitable and representative of our discipline’s broad commitment to decolonising academic practice