Ieva Vīvere

Through the lens of music

My background is in musicology, but I take an interdisciplinary approach to my profession. Specializing in ethnomusicology predisposes me to perceive any music or soundscape as a lens through which to study the values, concerns, decisions, and relationships of different social groups with their environment, state, and the world. I have been working at the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art at the University of Latvia since 2015. Since my student years, I have been researching Latvian Roma society, music, and history. This field research has shown that music can be a safe space in which to meet and engage in dialogue with lesser-known and less understood social groups.

My work at the Archives of Latvian Folklore means that every day I am in contact with sources of Latvian traditional music and many people who want to learn about and study these sources. My other research projects are devoted to the representation of ethnic minorities in Latvian cultural policy and the music industry, the history and aesthetics of the Latvian folklore movement in the undemocratic conditions of the 1970s and 1980s, as well as the analysis of the composition and improvisation principles of spoken songs, an ancient singing style close to speech, using digital methods. In terms of concepts and theories, my research has so far contributed to the academic discussions on authenticity, ethnicity, nationalism, cultural policy and implementation, and social networks, with some less predictable turns towards urban studies, the geography of emotions, and the history of Latvian entertainment culture. In recent years, I have been learning about digital humanities methods and the new research opportunities they offer.