Abstract

Abstract

As climate change increasingly threatens global security, “eco-musicking” has emerged as a medium for environmental engagement. While scholars and practitioners suggest that music fosters ecological commitment, empirical evidence regarding its psychological and social functioning remains sparse.

This talk explores how music listening facilitates reflexivity and might help shape and sustain ecological orientation. Presenting findings from a multi-method study (N=171) of audiences during Scottish musician Erland Cooper’s commercial releases (2023-24), I draw on environmental psychology and a “music-in-social-action” approach to investigate the music’s affective and reflexive potential. The research reveals that the music acts as a reflexive resource for listeners, activating ecological identity and connections to themes of “Nature, Time, and Place” in the context of what are perceived to be depleted social and natural environments, and prompting reflection on non-human agency, ecological guilt, and hope.

Rather than a sudden catalyst for change, I argue that music listening can function as a reflexive encounter that brings environmental values into awareness, sustaining and perhaps shifting ecological orientation slowly and incrementally. I conclude by proposing an integrative model of eco-music listening, while remaining critical of the reductive optimism that positions music as a driver of pro-environmental behaviour.

The research design and data collection discussed in this talk was conducted with Dr Jacob Kingsbury Downs (University of Oxford) and Dr Landon Peck (University of Sheffield).

Biography

Professor Nicola Dibben is a musicologist specialising in music cognition, popular music studies, and music digitalisation. Her research uses empirical methods and music analysis to investigate how values and identities are encountered and shaped through music listening. A former editor of Empirical Musicology Review and Popular Music, her publications include Music and Mind in Everyday Life (2010), Sounds Icelandic (2019) and the monograph Björk (2009), which led to a collaboration on Björk’s Biophilia (2011) album-app. Her recent work explores music listening in XR, synthetic media, and assistive AI music generation. She provided academic leadership at the University of Sheffield as Faculty Director of Research and Innovation (2018-2025) and serves on Research Excellence Framework assessment subpanels for music (2014-2029). Her international recognition includes an honorary doctorate from the University of Oslo.

Zoom link

https://zoom.us/j/99433440421?pwd=ZWxCQXFZclRtbjNXa0s2K1Q2REVPZz09 (Meeting ID: 994 3344 0421; Passcode: 714277)