To Örebro University

The research program Music, Power and Inequities (MPI) brings together scholars with a shared interest in power in musical practices and institutions at Örebro University. MPI was established on the recognition that music’s celebrated potential for cohesion is paralleled by musical practices and institutions that sustain exclusion and inequity.

There is, for instance, a long-established belief that music fosters cooperation and moral standards. The European Commission (2022) argues that music “has the power to bring positive changes in society”, yet research shows that unequal relations and forms of exclusion persist across musical contexts. Music spaces, from conservatories to recording studios, have been sites of sexual harassment and abuse, as demonstrated by the #metoo campaign (Bull et al. 2023); professional opportunities are shaped by prejudice (Ålander & Volgsten 2021); and music-making and consumption are divided by class, gender, and ethnicity (Angelo et al. 2019; Bull & Scharff 2021; Moberg 2019). In addition, music has been used by anti-democratic movements, to promote racist, xenophobic agendas (de Boise 2024).

In this paper, we present findings from a scoping review of contemporary research on power in musical practices and institutions, conducted within MPI. Through an examination of peer-reviewed articles addressing inequ(al)ities related to various aspects of music, we show that research on music and power places strong emphasis on gender, race, and social justice. While the concepts of power and inequality are frequently invoked, they are rarely defined. We outline three central lines of critique: (1) power is often addressed implicitly, without attention to the relational dynamics through which it operates; (2) inequality and inequity are commonly framed as issues of representation or attitudes, rather than as outcomes of unequal distribution of resources; and (3) barriers to analysing power are reinforced by epistemic inequalities within academic research itself. Together, these findings point to the need for more explicit, structural, and relational analyses of power in music research.