Front Matter
Acknowledgments
Several years into my graduate studies, I found a printout of a paper my father wrote in 1993 called “A Sense of Place: Integrated Learning through Virtual Environment Development.” In it, he writes: “Humankind is a species of world builders.” I have been fortunate in that there are many people who have helped me build my world and, in turn, contributed to this dissertation. I will thank as many as I can think of here.
It goes without saying that every person who has served on my dissertation committee is a brilliant scholar, but more than that, they have been tremendous team members. Dr. Rebecca Dirksen has advised me with deep thought and keen insights. She has kept me grounded and advocated for me in times of need. I could not ask for a better chair. Every meeting I have with Dr. Solimar Otero feels like a revelation; she was the first person to guide me to the concept of the radioscape. Dr. Eduardo Herrera once explained to me that everything—thinking, reading, processing—is part of the dissertation writing process. I am grateful for his support and willingness to help me get past the final PhD hurdles. I am also grateful for his cat, Cosmos, who is very cute. Dr. Ryan Powell has been gracious and generous in meeting with me and helping me make connections between ethnomusicology and cultural studies through human geographies. In his time on my committee (and before and, probably, after), Dr. Fernando Orejuela listened to more of my worries than perhaps anyone else in the department and did so with sincere care. I am very glad to have had these individuals in my proverbial corner.
Many other professors at Indiana University have been crucial to my journey. Dr. Julianne Graper’s seminar on sound studies changed my entire path of study. Teaching under her supervision was a privilege and I am grateful for her continued and consistent support. Dr. Bertie Kibreah was my first teaching supervisor, and I aspire to embody the kindness he showed in that role and as an instructor of undergraduate and graduate students. Dr. Alisha Lola Jones gave me tools for research and public practice I am still discovering. Dr. John McDowell helped nurture my scholarship early on as I returned to school at IU. Dr. Ranu Samantrai urged me to take the hypothetical syllabus I wrote for her class and turn it into a real course, which was one of the most rewarding experiences of my graduate student life. Dr. David McDonald has provided me with concepts and resources that have been critical to my thinking as a scholar and person. Faculty emeriti Drs. Sue Tuohy and Daniel Reed have both been incredible models of how to support and encourage students. I am always happy to see them.
I developed many of the ideas in this dissertation at the Fifteenth Annual Doctoral Workshop in Ethnomusicology at the Center for World Music, University of Hildesheim and Hanover University of Music, Drama, and Media in summer 2025. Many thanks to Drs. Philip Bohlman, Rasika Ajotikar, Yongfei Du, Michael Fuhr, and Raimund Vogels for directing the workshop and Chun-Bin Chen for giving the keynote lecture. My fellow participants at the workshop were Mehdi Bagheri, Fiona Boyd, Yu-Jen Chang, Vashala Charles, Kira Gaillard, Yanxiazi Gao, Indira Anna Hajnács, Mickael Kouakou, Ingvill Morlandstoe, Jason Ottoo, Emily Williams Roberts, Yiyan Shao, Davindar Singh (who also introduced me to Nami yo Kiitekure), Naoko Takayanagi, Mira Wöllenstein, and Allan Zheng. The entire Hildesheim experience gave me the fuel I needed to finally sit down and write this dissertation, and each of these individuals made it what it was.
Much of the work I did in chapter two was made better with the guidance of the Ethnomusicology Ireland editorial team working on the special issue “Broadcasting Music and Dance,” scheduled for publication in summer 2026. On that front, special thanks are due to Drs. Rebecca Draisey-Collishaw, Helen Gubbins, and Méabh Ní Fhuartháin, who have been working on the issue and arranged a beautiful hybrid plenary session for ICTMD-IE in 2026 based on the issue. I am grateful to fellow roundtable participants Dr. Christina Baade, Ch’ng Xin Ying, Ham Chew Yung, Dafydd Hall Williams, Stan Erraught, and Pádraig Mac Aodhagáin. I learned from each of their distinct presentations.
Many thanks to IU’s Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, the Cultural Studies program, the College of Arts and Sciences, the College Arts and Humanities Institute, the Laura Boulton Foundation, the Pacific and Modern Language Association, and the British Forum for Ethnomusicology for grants and fellowships supporting my work and conference travel.
Michelle Melhouse and Elise Suarez are administrative miracle workers. I am very grateful to them and all past and present administrative professionals in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology.
Graduate school has allowed me to gain experience in many different spheres. Dr. Steve Stuempfle directed me as the editorial assistant for the Society for Ethnomusicology. Lorraine Cashman and Dr. Jessica Turner supervised summer of virtual work with the American Folklore Society, during which I got to work closely with Emily Bianchi, Dilara Inam, and Micah Ling. In the Archives of Traditional Music, I worked under the supervision of Dr. Alan Burdette and Allison McClanahan and packed boxes with Caio de Souza, Ezgi Benli, and Niousha Eslahchi. I have been thrilled to spend my last student year working at the Archives of African American Music and Culture under the direction of Dr. Tyron Cooper, Mia Watts, and William Vanden Dries; and alongside fellow student workers Hannah Arroyo, Lamont Pearley, and Garima Plawat. I have served as associate instructor alongside Joe Johnson, Tadhg Ó Meachair, Olivia Phillips, Savannah Ridley, and Jamaal Baptiste. These are all wonderful people.
I’ve experienced ample support from fellow students at IU and on the conference circuit. At the 2024 American Folklore Society, I presented with Katya Chomitzky and Isaiah Green. The next year, I presented with Caio de Souza and Ezgi Benli; we were fortunate to have Alan Burdette as our discussant. Ezgi, Joe Z. Johnson, and Tadhg Ó Meachair were my housemates that week; beyond that, they also make my life better as very good friends and colleagues. My tech team compatriots in Atlanta were Kurt Baer, chloē fourte, Suyash Kumar Neupane, and Savannah Rose Ridley. Savannah kept me intact throughout the conference and talks me down from strange emotional places and into sartorial success regularly. Suyash is a friend I hope to break bread with literally and figuratively for years to come. At UT Austin’s Musicking Communities and Labor symposium, I met Anna Marinela Lopez, Ken Ge, Eric Whitmer, and many other brilliant people. Many thanks to my IASPM-US 2026 hosts, Davindar Singh and Siv B. Lie, and my fellow campers Jackie Fortier and Ben Barson. I thank many of my other friends and colleagues from IU: Jamaal Baptiste, Violet Baron, Donny Bradley, Ben Bridges, Katie Brown, Jermaine Butler, Deborah De La Torre, Gwyn Harris, Dilara Inam, Christian James, Kennedi Johnson, Tristan Leighton, Emilyann Long, Amelia López López, Monica Marion, Jeremy Reed, Alex Sanchez, Jenna Sears, Nia I’man Smith, Iryna Voloshyna, and Wuerxiya for everything they have taught me inside and outside of classrooms. I know I’m forgetting people. Sorry!
Thank you to the staff and board of the Collins Living-Learning Center for allowing me to design and teach the undergraduate seminar Radio Arts and Worldbuilding. Thanks also to my students, each of whom broadened my understanding of the contemporary mediascape.
Though my initial undergraduate career was several lifetimes ago, I am also very grateful to my instructors at City College of San Francisco, among them Jessica Sabolboro, Dr. Art Nishimura, Dr. Karin Hu, Kwaku Daddy, Jill Yee, Dr. Terry Day, Dr. Melinda Weil, and Sami Kudsi; and, at the University of California, Berkeley, Sirpa Tuomainen, Dr. John Lindow, Sonia Wichmann, Carl Olson, Dr. Karin Sanders, Dr. Kaiping Peng, and Dr. Charles Briggs, who all taught me (and some of whom might even remember me).
The dissertation only exists because WFHB exists. I am very thankful to all WFHB personnel, past and present (and future), whether still there or long gone, for what they have contributed to South-Central Indiana. Paid staff members who have helped me while working on my dissertation include Jar Turner, Jeffrey “Sundog” Morris, Brooke Turpin, Abby Noroozi, Kade Young, Jessie Grubb, Josh Brewer, and Noelle Herhusky-Schneider. Our current and extraordinary board of directors consists of president Emily Jackson, treasurer Mark Hood, secretary Chuck Beckett, and members Tristra Newyear Yeager, Jo Ann Vogt, Addison Rogers, Ron Kadish, Ben Myers, and Jim Odom. Thanks to each of them.
Jim Manion let me on the air when I was a painfully shy 21-year-old living far away from home for the first time. He taught me how to broadcast, host, and produce. I quite literally can’t imagine where my life would be without him. Thank you.
A few other WFHBers who have been key to my journey: Kelly Wherley, the first person I met in Bloomington; Cindy Beaulé, the first WFHB programmer I ever heard; John Westhues, who paved the way for uusikansanmusiikki on the Indiana airwaves; my fellow Planetary Caravan hosts (past and present) Daryana Antipova, Dylan Grigar, Cynthia Roberts, Allison Strang, and Ash Teng; Christine Brackenhoff, the station’s second-ever music director and my favorite Hoosier road trip buddy/fellow radio girl; Kevin Howley, who wrote the literal book on community media and whom I met by accident the evening after submitting my final quals list; Tonda Radewan, my Off the Charts co-host; Steve Volan, the real geographer; Amanda Hutchins, my Sunday afternoon vibes pal; and Doug Storm, whose Interchange episodes are my kind of popular music. There are so, so many others I haven’t mentioned, both because I’ll inevitably forget someone and because, underneath it all, I’m still the shy 21-year-old I was at the start of all this, just louder and older.
Thanks to the torch-bearers of WQAX and the KRAB Nebula for answering my questions. My dissertation is richer for what I now know about community radio beyond WFHB. Thanks also to my PopMatters editor, Sarah Zupko, for giving me the chance to write for a wider audience, and apologies to her and all the PR teams I have had to put on the backburner.
My extra-academic friends remind me that there is more to life than dissertating while also supporting me in my strange endeavors. I am especially thankful to Sylvia Alvarez, Nate Ben-Horin, Zaz Bosurgi, Connie Chung, Maria Gaiser, Katie Hom, Alex Lobascio, Julie Saunders, Pauly Strops, and Emily Wolf, all of whom are beloved to me. Emily has been especially wonderful in attending some of my last graduate student events and helping motivate me to finish my dissertation revisions swiftly.
Over the course of this dissertation, my mom has continued to be the best and funniest and nicest mom in the universe, and you can cite me on that. My sister Teddi puts up with a lot of nonsense and my brother Eli produces a lot of nonsense; both have kept me laughing even through the editing phase. My father first introduced me to many concepts that permeate this manuscript. I am lucky to have a supportive extended family: my uncle Steve and aunt Suzanne, whom I have known for a short time and yet with whom I have so many wonderful and often food-filled memories; the rest of the Gentrys and Richers who have welcomed the wayward Pontecorvos; Meg, who has done so much more than her share; my stepsiblings Julianna and Sander; Inga, Jay, and Sarah Soule; and Sylvia, Marcos, Gabe, and 2baby2furious Alvarez.
Unending thanks to my partner, Jar Turner, who has gone through all of this with me. He and his children Isabelle, Lake, and Jay have been gracious and welcoming of my eccentricities (e.g., getting a PhD in ethnomusicology). Bonus thanks to Lake and Jay for letting me spend time with their respective cats, Amelia and Dr. Caballeron (not a real doctor).