Curating Canadianness: Public Service Broadcasting, Fusion Programming, and Hierarchies of Difference
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CURATING CANADIANNESS: PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING, FUSION PROGRAMMING, AND HIERARCHIES OF DIFFERENCE by © Rebecca Draisey-Collishaw A dissertation submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Ethnomusicology Memorial University of Newfoundland October 2017 St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador ABSTRACT “Fusion programming” is an approach to music broadcasting that was employed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) during the early years of the twenty-first century. It’s understandable as a response to systemic and systematic pressure to be “more multicultural.” It was about the artistry of musicians and entertainment of audiences, but fusion programming also served a didactic purpose for producers and listeners, participating in the production, elaboration, reinforcement, and/or deconstruction of existing cultural systems. Producing fusion programming involved bringing a minimum of two musicians/musical groups from different genres, languages, styles, scenes, and cultures into the same CBC-sponsored venue for the expressed purpose of performing together and discussing the challenges of collaboration. Performances, in many cases, were posited as “multicultural,” “cross cultural,” or “a collision of cultures,” and conversations framing the music often referenced diversity, multiculturalism, and difference, effectively mapping musicians’ positionality within Canadian society and geography. This study uses “ethnographically grounded” content analysis of archival broadcasts (principally via radio) of fusion programming to raise questions about the discursive limitations of multiculturalism imposed by the ways in which policy concepts were operationalized during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Beginning with the principles, rights, and responsibilities defined in the Multiculturalism (1988) and Broadcasting (1991) Acts, I use case studies drawn from centres across Canada and i broadcast via multiple CBC platforms and media lines in order to explore the CBC as a system of communication. I then focus on Fuse, the longest running example of fusion programming, examining how approaches to mediation and curation both celebrate and silence particular voices. I suggest that that while cross-cut with contradictions and resistance to totalizing narratives—particularly when the experiences of live audiences are taken into account and regional variants of fusion programming are considered— fusion programming privileged a very limited understanding of “Canadianness.” Instead of promoting an understanding of multiculturalism based on principles of social construction and integration into a shared civic culture based on liberal humanist principles, production contexts and assumptions about what counts as normal functioned to shore up the status quo; the potential for a more equitable sense of belonging embedded in existing legislation remains limited by existing discursive realizations. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My sincere appreciation to the members of my supervisory committee: Dr. Beverley Diamond for her patient and insightful feedback on the many incarnations of this dissertation; Dr. Kati Szego for her ongoing mentorship and encouragement to look to the details; and Dr. Ailsa Craig for showing me how to look at culture from another direction. I’m indebted to the staff of the Centre for Music, Media, and Place for their ongoing support, and to my peers who were (and remain) constant sources for feedback and inspiration. Many thanks, too, to Evelyn Conlon, for her caring pragmatism and sometimes bossy demands to see another thousand words, and to Dr. Fintan Vallely for his guidance and support. This study would not have been possible without contributions from the many people who helped me to develop the necessary research tools: Gavin Collishaw and Richard Corner for their preliminary technical assistance; and Keith Sutherland, who helped me to unlock the tremendous analytical tools to be found in spreadsheets. Thanks to Jackie Small, Marion MacLeod, Marc Finch, Luc Journe, and Leila Qashu for providing feedback on my approach to data analysis. Special thanks to Cristina Pietropaolo for her comments on my research tools and for taking the time to dig into the CBC’s archives on my behalf. My deepest gratitude to the many named and unnamed musicians who responded to surveys, and to the producers, hosts, and archivists at the CBC who shared their time, thoughts, and broadcasts with me. As well, I iii would like to acknowledge the generosity of Emily Chen who provided the photos that are reproduced in this dissertation. Parts of chapter 3 have been published under the title “Revealing the ‘Fort’: The CBC as a Mediator of Ethnocultural Encounter in St. John’s NL” in Contemporary Musical Expressions and Cultural Resonances in Canada (McGill-Queen’s University Press, forthcoming). Many thanks to the editors of that volume for adding their perspectives and encouraging me to think about my work in a different light. I wish to acknowledge the financial support of both the School of Graduate Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Thank you, as well, to Monica Coll and Margaret McMahon for providing me with spaces to write at essential moments, and to the many friends and family members who offered their support along the way—particularly those who had the difficult task of living with me through this very long process. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ................................................................................................................................. i Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. iii List of Tables...................................................................................................................... viii List of Figures ...................................................................................................................... ix List of Appendices ................................................................................................................ x Chapter 1 Introduction: Curating public culture (or, a summary of methods and theoretical assumptions) ................................................. 1 1.1 Producing multicultural Canada .......................................................................... 10 1.1.1 Multiculturalism as policy and discourse ..................................................... 10 1.1.2 Interpreting reality: Tensions, contradictions, and positionality ................ 18 1.1.3 Musicking hierarchies of difference: Music as discourse ............................ 21 1.1.4 Consuming multiculturalism: Fusion programming and theories of contact ......................................... 28 1.2 The anthropology of policy and the multi-sited ethnography: Locating the field ............................................................................................. 33 1.2.1 Following the policy: Sociopolitical contexts ............................................... 33 1.2.2 Regional and national programming: Symptomatic artifacts ...................... 37 1.3 A summary of parts ............................................................................................. 41 Chapter 2 Methodology: Engaging the CBC ethnographically ........................................................... 50 2.1 Researching media history: Production contexts, institutional challenges, and artifacts ........................... 53 2.1.1 Mapping the CBC and gathering artifacts .................................................... 58 2.1.2 Accessing information .................................................................................. 62 2.1.3 Grounding analysis ....................................................................................... 65 2.2 “Ethnographically grounded content analysis” .................................................. 68 2.2.1 Analytical Tools ............................................................................................ 71 2.3 Getting to know the musicians: Issues of representation, reflection, and curation ........................................ 104 Chapter 3 Locating Fuse: Mapping fusion programming in Canada ................................................ 113 3.1 Making programming “more multicultural”: Mapping systems and structures .................................................................. 117 v 3.2 A spectrum of programming: Case studies ....................................................... 122 3.2.1 Newfoundland and Labrador: Come By Concerts ..................................... 126 3.2.2 Calgary, Alberta: Combo to Go .................................................................. 139 3.2.3 CBC North: The True North Concerts ......................................................... 141 3.2.4 French and English Montréal: Mundo Montréal ....................................... 152 3.2.5 Vancouver, British Columbia: “Burning to Shine” on ZeD ......................... 165 3.2.6 The Maritimes ............................................................................................ 172 3.3 Characterizing fusion programming .................................................................. 180 3.3.1 Fusion programming elaborates social relationships ................................ 180 3.3.2 Fusion programming is embedded in structural