Kristina Jacobsen
Research
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2019-20
Italy
Project Title: Sing Me Back Home: Language Politics, Songwriting and Italian Colonialism in Sardinia
Dr. Kristina Jacobsen is an associate professor of ethnomusicology at the UNM Music Department with a secondary appointment in Anthropology (ethnology). Dr. Jacobsen is an ethnographer, singer-songwriter, and cultural anthropologist. she is the coordinator for the newly founded Songwriting Focus Area within the Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts degree within the College of Fine Arts and the founder and co-facilitator of the UNM Honky-Tonk Ensemble.
In 2019, Dr. Jacobsen traveled to the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, Italy as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar on the Fulbright-Fondazione CON IL SUD grant from Founzadione CON IL SUD, an Italian foundation that promotes the social and economic development of Southern Italy. Her research in Sardinia centered on how speech and music offer a perspective on Sardinia’s colonial past and current “postcolonial” period.
While in Sardinia, Dr. Jacobsen wrote, produced, recorded, and released a brand-new album; co-authored articles with Sardinian colleagues at the University of Cagliari; and completed research for her second book project, Sing Me Back Home: Ethnographic Songwriting and Language Reclamation in Sardinia, Italy. Her Fulbright also allowed her to focus on future collaboration, including the creation of a brand-new study abroad course at UNM: “Singing and Ethnography of the Mediterranean: Sardinia, Italy” and to develop an immersive week-long songwriting workshop in Santu Lussurgiu, Sardinia, called "Songs of Sardegna."
Dr. Jacobsen reflects on the impact of her Fulbright: “Fulbright was an incredible privilege and experience to have. It allowed me to forge many connections: I left with a new community of artists and musicians, new friendships, and new insights into the complexities of language, politics, sovereignty, and poetics on this beautiful island nation. Sardinia is now not just in my head, but in my heart.”
