Doctoral Public Lecture | Rosheeka Parahoo

Student Name: Rosheeka Parahoo
Program: Music – Musicology
Thesis Title: Listening to the Noise: Exploring Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Work in the Canadian Music Industry

Abstract: 

This dissertation examines equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) work within the Canadian music industry. It is guided by the central research question: What is our understanding of equity, diversity, and inclusion in the Canadian music industry?

To provide a holistic analysis, this dissertation is structured around the three levels that make up the Canadian music industry (the individual level, institutional level and regulatory level) and examines their subsequent intersection with EDI work. At the individual level, I examine how music professionals experience the industry and engage with EDI initiatives. The institutional level analyzes how record labels and not-for-profit music organizations frame EDI in their public discourse. Finally, in the regulatory level, I explore how cultural policies and content regulations shape the implementation of EDI, particularly in defining and preserving Canadian music and identity.

This dissertation concludes that EDI work at the individual, institutional and regulatory level reproduces a cycle in which EDI work remains siloed and fails to be systematically implemented. Participants report a lack of psychological safety, prevalent harassment and discrimination as key issues at the individual level. Institutionally, EDI discourse centers on values, commitments and partnerships and emphasize the performance of inclusion over its execution. Finally, by conceptualizing EDI as noise at the regulatory level, this dissertation argues that equity efforts are neutralized and framed as disruptive yet rendered ineffective through repetition and absorption into dominant narratives of Canadian music and identity.

Using cross-disciplinary methods such as diversity phenomenology, critical discourse analysis, as well as Attali’s concept of theorizing through music, this dissertation ultimately presents a new lens through which to understand how the work of EDI in the Canadian music industry is understood and executed. This dissertation urges scholars, policymakers and industry leaders to move EDI work toward a deeper entanglement with power, access and cultural regulation. In doing so, it invites a reimagining of EDI work as well as Canadian music and identity as evolving and contested spaces.

Please contact Audrey Yardley-Jones, Graduate Program Assistant, Don Wright Faculty of Music, for further information: ayardley@uwo.ca