The workshop aims to create a space for interdisciplinary debate centred on a key question: how are values attributed to music, and how do these values become a matter of public interest, thereby justifying forms of intervention, funding, regulation or protection? Taking a sociomusicological, cultural and communicational approach, the session will seek to examine the ways in which different musical practices are valued, legitimised and contested in contemporary societies, considering the relationships between institutions, audiences, cultural mediation, cultural policies and forms of participation.

In a context marked by budgetary constraints, inequalities of access, the fragmentation of audiences, algorithmic mediation and growing pressure to demonstrate social, economic or educational impact, it is necessary to discuss the criteria by which certain musical practices are supported, preserved, promoted, transformed or marginalised. Drawing on Carlos Vargas’s book O Essencial sobre Política Cultural and other materials for reflection, the workshop proposes to consider music as a form of collective life.