Why do so many people feel part of something bigger than themselves when they sing with others? How does listening to people sing, especially in certain ritual contexts, give us this same feeling? With this book, singer and scholar Helen Phelan draws on over two decades of musical and educational research to explore the agency of singing in fostering experiences of belonging through ritual performance. Set against the backdrop of “the new Ireland” of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, it charts Ireland’s growing multiculturalism, changing patterns of migration, the diminishin ... More

Why do so many people feel part of something bigger than themselves when they sing with others? How does listening to people sing, especially in certain ritual contexts, give us this same feeling? With this book, singer and scholar Helen Phelan draws on over two decades of musical and educational research to explore the agency of singing in fostering experiences of belonging through ritual performance. Set against the backdrop of “the new Ireland” of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, it charts Ireland’s growing multiculturalism, changing patterns of migration, the diminishing influence of Catholicism, and synergies between local and global forms of cultural expression in its investigation of rights and rites of belonging. Richly autobiographical and autoethnographic, it examines a range of religious, educational, civic, and community-based rituals, including religious rituals of new migrant communities in “borrowed” rituals spaces; baptismal rituals in the context of the Irish citizenship referendum; rituals that mythologize the core values of an educational institution; a ritual laboratory for students of singing; and community-based festivals and performances. These close to the ground narratives peel back the physiological, emotional, and cultural layers of singing to investigate how it functions as a potential agent of belonging. Each chapter engages theoretically with one of five core characteristic of singing (resonance, somatics, performance, temporality, and tacitness) anchored in ethnographic descriptions of performed rituals. In doing so, it builds a persuasive theory of ritually framed singing as a potent tool in the creation of inclusive communities of belonging.