Music Heritage, Music-evoked Reminiscence and Cultural Identity: Exploring Musical Connectedness to Family, Community and Place with the Chilean Diaspora of Northern England

This article explores the findings of our recent work with the Chilean community in Liverpool, investigating the importance of music as an individual and collective inheritance and how music is valued and attached to a sense of self, place and belonging. Using a novel methodology based on BBC Radio Four’s programme ‘Inheritance Tracks’, participants took part in workshops where they discussed two pieces of music, one passed on to them and one they wish to pass on, explaining why the pieces were important and what they evoked. To reinforce reminiscence we introduced personal objects and artefacts into workshops and one-to-one interviews. The article illustrates how using music to stimulate discussion about the past results in emotional and affectionate responses to recalling times and places, with a lesser focus on actions, activities and structures. It explores how music in individual and group activities helps migrant communities maintain their cultural heritage and identity while building new lives, providing a means for forming bonds with the host culture and – in this case – a link with Chile. It investigates how music-inspired reminiscence activities can bring out emotional wellbeing benefits in the present, unlocking memories and related positive emotions and facilitating inter-generational communication and understanding.