Between a Context that Expands and an Ideology that Defunds

With this issue of El odo pensante, we present the second edition of OP-Incitements, a section that brings together prominent researchers around a provocative idea.This time, the contributors have been invited to deny, affirm, or relativize an idea that questions the effectiveness, and even the very existence, of ethnomusicology in the face of the changes occurring in musical practices since the beginning of the century.These changes result from technological and commercial transformations affecting various types of contents.I am primarily referring to the omnipresence of platforms, the constant emergence and renewal of software and devices, the unprecedented production scale of intermedial expressions, the appearance of new types of consumers and intermediaries, and the unpredictable spread of AI, among others.In terms of musical practices, these transformations favour the emergence of new genres, composition techniques, listening experiences, distribution and storage policies, and commercialization strategies.For research in the field, this context is doubly expansive: it leads to exploring the possibilities of emerging sound production, distribution, and consumption tools, while also prompting a reevaluation of the theories and methods we have to address the music scenario these tools are creating.