About INET-md

About Us

The Institute of Ethnomusicology – Centre for Studies in Music and Dance (INET-md) is a research unit built on the integration of arts, humanities and sciences.

Founded in 1995, INET-md has since invested in partnerships with communities, scholars, artists, policymakers and non-academic institutions in pursuit of democratic and decolonial constructions of knowledge.

The achievements of INET-md encompass groundbreaking ethnographic and historical work on expressive practices of music and dance; studies of their manifestation and preservation; attending to political implications and worldwide interconnections; explorations of dance and music as embodied social practices; the study of formal and non-formal pedagogical approaches in these areas; experimentation in artistic research; and acoustic profiling of musical instruments. Headquartered at NOVA University Lisbon (NOVA FCSH), INET-md has branches at the University of Aveiro (DeCA-UA), the University of Lisbon (FMH-ULisboa) and Polytechnic of Porto (ESE-P.Porto), as well as one branch in formation at Polytechnic University of Lisbon (IPL).

Trajectory

INET-md is the first research unit in Portugal focusing on music and dance.

INET-md, initially designated INET (Institute of Ethnomusicology), was founded in 1995 by Salwa-El Shawan Castelo-Branco at the School of Social Sciences of NOVA University Lisbon (NOVA FCSH), with the aim of conducting multidisciplinary research on music from the perspective of Ethnomusicology.

In 2007, it expanded its research areas, incorporating two new branches based at the University of Aveiro and the University of Lisbon. A new branch was added at the Polytechnic of Porto in 2015.

With this new configuration, INET also acquired a new name: Institute of Ethnomusicology – Centre for Studies in Music and Dance (INET-md).

Goals

INET-md’s main goals

INET-md’s main objective is the development of research and creation in the fields of music and dance, in collaboration with various interlocutors and institutions. The main activities include:

To carry out transdisciplinary research on music and dance, using current perspectives from Ethnomusicology, Historical Musicology, Cultural Studies, Popular Music Studies, Dance Studies, Music Education, Music Theory and Analysis, Performance Studies, Music Acoustics, Sound Studies and Artistic Research;
To develop collaborative partnerships with local groups and communities, artists, policy makers and national and international institutions, towards a socially responsible democratic and decolonial construction of knowledge;
To promote research that fosters relations between countries and regions with historical links with Portugal, addressing issues related to colonial pasts and postcolonial contexts;
To develop artistic research on music and dance performance and composition;
To consolidate research in sound production and perception based on physical and psycho-acoustic principles;
To promote audiovisual archiving and online databases as a common good for society.

Investigation Groups