ABSTRACT

Drawing on my personal experience within a participatory research collective created in 2003 in Rio de Janeiro and still in activity, in this article, I discuss community as a potentially powerful outcome of ongoing social processes within which musical practices may have a fundamental role, and I argue that it can be important for ethnomusicologists to reconsider the city as a fundamental dimension for analyses. I also discuss participatory research perspectives on music as a peculiar form of “musicking” that, through a process of collective “praxis” (the unity of action and reflection) and of denaturalization of differences and inequalities, can contribute to the shaping of a more critical sense of community for all the people involved.