Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology Nadia Chana has won a Jaap Kunst Prize for her 2023 article “Ugly Publics.” The prize recognizes the most significant article in ethnomusicology written by members of the Society for Ethnomusicology during the first 10 years of their scholarly career. Chana’s article was published in the Fall 2023 issue of the journal Ethnomusicology.

Chana’s essay takes up a collaboration between Inuk singer Tanya Tagaq and Greenlandic mask dancer Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory to theorize a form of dominant public she calls an “ugly public.”

“Ugly publics rely on the difference between audiences (the people in the room) and publics (which are not quite people and rely on a series of texts) to come into being,” Chana writes in the article’s abstract. “Ugly publics result when a dominant public is pinned down and made to feel feelings associated with minoritarian positionings. Crucially, in ugly publics, these feelings do not result from empathizing with minoritarian subjects but rather from confronting their own dominance.”

Members of the prize committee noted that “this penetrating study of audience response to a performance by Indigenous musicians confronts us, as readers, with the uncomfortable truths of race, dominance, and power in North America. In turning her gaze on the audience, Nadia Chana defamiliarizes the idea of ‘going to a concert’ that most of us accept without much further thought. Her work inspires deep reflection in us as readers, as ethnomusicologists, and as lovers of and listeners to music.”