Podcast Summary:

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Ailbhe Kenny, "Music Refuge: Living Asylum through Music" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Host: Dave (New Books Network)
Guest: Ailbhe Kenny
Date: March 3, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode features Dr. Ailbhe Kenny discussing her new book, Music Refuge: Living Asylum through Music. The conversation explores how music shapes experiences of asylum seekers in accommodation centers, bridging divides, fostering community, and creating meaning beyond survival. Kenny details participatory research with refugees in Ireland and Germany, reflecting on music’s potential for radical belonging, community-building, and personal transformation in contexts of forced displacement.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

Inspiration & Aims of the Book

• (02:10) Kenny began researching music and migration at the height of the Syrian refugee crisis (2015), questioning "what happens once immediate needs of food and shelter are met?" and emphasizing the importance of understanding refugees beyond victim narratives.
• Motivation stemmed from a desire to focus on cultural and artistic needs, identities, and the lived realities beyond stereotypical images:

  "I wanted to know more. I wanted to go behind those very confronting victim narratives that were often presented with about people seeking refuge in asylum." (02:56 - Kenny)

Case Study Countries: Ireland & Germany

• (04:48) Kenny chose Ireland and Germany for their contrasting migration histories:
  • Germany: long-established, highly diverse, top destination for asylum in Europe.
  • Ireland: Newer to inward migration, previously homogenous until the 1990s.
• Participatory longitudinal research in German asylum centers provided deep immersion and comparative insights.

Four Key Projects: Growth & Methodologies

• (07:51) Kenny began with a small Irish grant, running a project with children in a local asylum center, then expanded through:
  • Community and intergenerational projects in Germany.
  • Partnerships with cultural organizations (Sing Ireland, Irish Refugee Council) via government grants.
  • Participation in HERA's "Knight Project," focusing on African diaspora and its impact on Irish urban music scenes.
• Emphasis on learning to make workshops intergenerational due to shared living spaces.

Why Music? Recognition & Participation

• (12:58) Kenny challenges the "hierarchy of needs" that prioritizes language/accommodation over cultural expression, arguing for the dignity and agency in musical participation:

  "It's about trying to shift our thinking, again, getting away from those victim narratives about people seeking asylum and thinking of them as active agents of their own lives." (13:37 - Kenny)

• Music offers multi-layered benefits—relaxation, identity, nostalgia, connection, and crucially, space for community in otherwise segregated and "non-belonging" environments:

  "Everything in these centers goes against that feeling of home… by creating music workshops, there's something quite special about people who come to sing or just play instruments. It takes them beyond that designation of asylum seeker… even if it's only once a week, it offers an alternative." (15:31 - Kenny)

Literary Structure: The Role of Interludes

• (18:57) Kenny inserted "interludes"—verbatim narratives from asylum-seeking musicians—to center lived experiences:

  "I just want their stories to sit between the chapters and be these very unique individual snapshots… in many ways they're kind of counter stories to what we expect of people seeking asylum." (19:35 - Kenny)

• The overwhelming response to calls for stories suggests a widespread need for such representation.

Radical Belonging & Community

• (22:29) Music provides "radical acts of belonging" in oppressive, liminal (“limbo”) spaces:

  "Music… helps to redefine what it means to belong in these very oppressive systems. And people seek out, despite everything that's set up to not belong, people do seek community in these spaces. And music is one way to do it." (23:30 - Kenny)

• Projects created new ways for residents to inhabit the centers and relate to others.

Communities of Musical Practice & New Knowings

• (25:04) Building on sociocultural learning theories:
  • True "communities of practice" require sustained engagement and relationship-building.
  • Musical participation enables new ways of being, interaction, and even activism:

    "I don't just mean learning as in musical skills… but different ways of being, encountering the other, processing the very unique spaces… I think these can also be quite activist spaces as well." (26:40 - Kenny)

  • "Sing-in" events, where local communities joined asylum seekers in music-making, fostered goodwill and challenged negative stereotypes by inviting outsiders in.

Practical Implications: Building Better Spaces

• (30:58) Kenny wants the book to inform inclusive space design for music and arts, especially considering increasing global displacement:
  • Recommends active participation, collaborative learning, agentic approaches, and crucially, recognizing prior knowledge of asylum seekers.
  • Stresses the importance of reflective practice among facilitators:

    "It's not just about filling the time and having fun. It's about, actually, can I deepen my practice here?" (32:57 - Kenny)

  • Argues for moving from reactive crisis modes to planned, meaningful integration in arts, education, and culture.

Future Directions

• (35:25) Kenny is working on a project exploring music’s role in “intercultural schools”—investigating belonging and diversity among refugee/asylum-seeking children in educational spaces.
  • Finds overlap and new challenges, as schools often struggle with fast-rising diversity and lack structures for true inclusion.
  • New projects are inspired by following emerging questions and interests from fieldwork.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On moving beyond survival:

  "Once the needs, those immediate needs of food and shelter are met, what then? ... I began thinking about people's cultural needs, their artistic needs, their identities that of course go way beyond just seeking asylum." (02:45 - Kenny)

• On shifting perceptions:

  "I always found it fascinating... this kind of hierarchy of needs and wants that people assume people seeking refuge in asylum need... It's about trying to shift our thinking... and thinking of them as active agents of their own lives." (13:17, 13:37 - Kenny)

• On music as resistance and community:

  "By creating music workshops, there's something quite special... it takes people beyond that designation of asylum seeker... even if it's only for an hour… it offers an alternative." (15:31 - Kenny)

• On powerful participant stories:

  "The response was overwhelming. I had an enormous response [to calls for interludes]... and I can see why. They really bring you to the heart of those very individual and unique stories of people who have used music in various ways." (20:16, 20:46 - Kenny)

• On unexpected community support:

  "We received such an incredibly positive response from those sing-in events... so much interest that we couldn't even accommodate the amount of people who wanted to come and do it… actually, I’ve found a huge amount of goodwill." (27:44, 28:40 - Kenny)

• On practical change:

  "We need to plan for. We need to plan for these communities and think about ways of meaningful integration and meaningful engagement in the arts and culture. As well as all the other things that they need." (33:59 - Kenny)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:05 | Introduction of guest/book
• 02:10 | Book’s inspiration and aims
• 04:48 | Case study rationale: Ireland vs. Germany
• 07:51 | Overview of four major projects and methodologies
• 12:58 | Why music? Music as recognition, need, agency
• 18:57 | Purpose and impact of narrative interludes
• 22:29 | Radical belonging, building community through music
• 25:04 | Communities of practice & new knowledge
• 30:58 | Practical implications: design of inclusive spaces
• 35:25 | Forthcoming projects: music in intercultural schools

Tone and Style

The episode maintained a warm, reflective, and deeply engaged academic tone. Kenny’s responses blend rigorous analysis with humanizing anecdotes, while Dave’s questions support depth and clarity, ensuring the conversation is accessible yet nuanced.

This summary captures the heart and breadth of the conversation, serving as both an informative and evocative guide for those interested in music, migration, and inclusive community building.