Dr. Allie Martin | UNC Music Research Forum

“Gentrification and Black Sound in Washington, DC”
Dr. Allie Martin, Dartmouth University

In this talk, I explore how gentrification has affected Black sonic life in Washington, DC. From the well publicized #DontMuteDC movement to lesser known stories of amplification and silencing, gentrification has many consequences for Black people and their sonic lives. Drawing from ethnography and soundscape recordings, I argue that listening intersectionally helps us to hear more than the sensationalism that gentrification requires. 

Allie Martin is an ethnomusicologist that explores the relationships between race, sound, and gentrification in Washington, DC. Utilizing a combination of ethnographic fieldwork and digital humanities methodologies, she considers how African-American people in the city experience gentrification as a sonic, racialized process. Her work has been supported by the Ford Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, the Society for American Music, and the American Musicological Society.

The UNC Music Research Forum hosts invited lectures by distinguished music scholars from around the world and informal research presentations by members of our department and colleagues across campus. It serves as an intellectual hub for the department and is open to all. The Forum is held on the final Friday of each month during the semester from 3:30-5:00 pm in Person Recital Hall.