The capacity to aspire

As has already been stated, the move to extend teachers’ visions through Appadurai’s notion of the capacity to aspireZDV¿UVWmade in recognition that the concept of teachers’ visions had been developed in western contexts and countries with established teacher education programs. Beyond this initial motivation, Appadurai’s notion of the capacity to aspire KDVEHHQDQLQÀXHQWLDOOHQVWKURXJKRXWWKLV UHVHDUFKSURMHFW,QSDUWLFXODULWKDVDGGHGWKUHHVLJQL¿FDQWSHUVSHFWLYHV)LUVWZKLOH Appadurai (2004) describes aspirations, like teachers’ visions, as being related to desires, his notion emphasises the idea that aspiring is a capacity. He (2006) thus GH¿QHVWKHFDSDFLW\WRDVSLUHDV³WKHVRFLDODQGFXOWXUDOFDSDFLW\WRSODQKRSHGHVLUH and achieve socially valuable goals” (p. 176). Second, his notion also emphasises the culturally embedded nature of aspirations. He asserts that although aspirations are related to seemingly individual “wants, preferences, choices, and calculations” (2004, p. 67), aspirations are “never simply individual” (p. 67). Rather, they are always formed through social interaction and located within the “larger map of local ideas and beliefs” (p. 68). The norms within which they are developed, however, often remain obscured. Third, he draws connections between the capacity to aspire and other capacities central for participation in democracy, including the capacity for voice and the capacity to research. The latter supports the notion that musician-teachers in the Kathmandu Valley, and teachers more generally, ought to engage in research as part of their work.

Appadurai’s (2004) argument for the capacity to aspire emerges from the need to move past perceptions of culture related only to pastness, encompassed for example LQQRWLRQVRIWUDGLWLRQKHULWDJHFXVWRPVDQGKDELWV&RQFHLYLQJFXOWXUHVDV³VSHFL¿F

and multiple designs for social life” (2004, p. 61)¹³, Appadurai recognizes that values, norms and beliefs, all considered central to cultures, do in fact relate to the future, however, most approaches to culture fail to elaborate on the implications of their futurity. In arguing that “futurity, rather than pastness” must be placed “at the heart of our thinking about culture” (Appadurai, 2004, p. 84), Appadurai leans on three pivotal developments in the anthropological debate over culture. First, that cultural coherence is a matter of systematic and generative relationality of the cultural system’s elements.

Second, that dissensus is an integral attribute of culture. Third, that cultural systems have weak and permeable ERXQGDULHV2XWVLGHRIDQWKURSRORJ\KHEXLOGVRQ&KDUOHV Taylor’s (1972) concept of recognition, Albert Hirschman’s (1970) ideas of loyalty, H[LWDQGYRLFHUHJDUGLQJIRUPVRIFROOHFWLYHLGHQWL¿FDWLRQDQGVDWLVIDFWLRQDQG6HQ¶V (e.g. 1984; 1999) contribution to welfare and economics that centres freedom, dignity and moral well-being. Sen’s idea of justice (2009), whereby questions of justice focus on assessments of social realizations and comparisons of individual advantage or deprivation, also became a relevant theoretical lens in Article V.

The capacity to aspire, Appadurai (2004) contends, is an essential social and cultural capacity that supports the exploration of alternative, credible futures. However, he (2004, 2013) explains that it is an unevenly distributed navigational capacity

that is more developed amongst the more privileged in any society. This is because

“the capacity to aspire, like any complex cultural capacity, thrives and survives on practice, repetition, exploration, conjecture, and refutation” (2004, p. 69), and it is the more privileged who have more opportunities to practice navigating the relations and pathways between ends and means, or aspirations and outcomes–the “pathways from concrete wants to intermediate contexts to general norms and back again” (2004, p. 69)–and to share their complex and diverse experiences doing so with each other (Appadurai, 2004). Indeed, the main fuel of this capacity “lies in credible stories (from one’s own life-world) of the possibility to move forward, outward, and upward”

(2013, p. 214), and the archive of such experiences and stories with which to imagine possibilities is greater amongst the more privileged (2004, 2013). The more privileged are thus “PRUHDEOHWRSURGXFHMXVWL¿FDWLRQVQDUUDWLYHVPHWDSKRUVDQGSDWKZD\V through which bundles of goods and services are actually tied to wider social scenes and contexts, and to still more abstract norms and beliefs” (2004, p. 68). The assertion that strengthening this capacity requires the sharing of experiences with others, further

์๎ Appadurai (1996) also advocates for regarding culture less as a noun or substance, and more usefully as DQDGMHFWLYHRUGLPHQVLRQ±FXOWXUDO±ZKLFKHQDEOHVDWWHQGLQJWRGL൵HUHQFHVFRQWUDVWVDQGFRPSDULVRQVVHH

supports the idea in this research project of engaging musician-teachers in workshops, rather than only in one-on-one interviews. Appadurai (2013) contends, “Imagining possible futures, concrete in their immediacy as well as expansive in their long-term horizons, inevitably thrives on communicative practices that extend one’s own cultural horizons” (p. 213). Thus, learning from and with each other in the workshops provided a space for extending horizons through the sharing of stories and experiences of both accomplishment and adversity, which enabled expanding archives and adding “speed and depth to the strengthening of the capacity to aspire” (Appadurai, 2013, p. 214).

As an unevenly distributed capacity, the capacity to aspire is both a symptom and measure of poverty, but something that can be changed by politics and policy (Appadurai 2006; 2013). Thus, its strengthening should be a priority in developmental H൵RUWVDVGRLQJVRPD\DOVRDFFHOHUDWHWKHEXLOGLQJRIRWKHUFDSDFLWLHV$SSDGXUDL 2004), and thus the co-developing of music teacher education in Nepal. According to Appadurai (2004), what Sen refers to as capabilities are “clearly linked” to the capacity to aspire. He (2004) argues that

The capacity to aspire provides an ethical horizon within which more concrete capabilities can be given meaning, substance, and sustainability. Conversely, the H[HUFLVHDQGQXUWXUHRIWKHVHFDSDELOLWLHVYHUL¿HVDQGDXWKRUL]HVWKHFDSDFLW\WR aspire and moves it away from wishful thinking to thoughtful wishing. Freedom, the anchoring good in Sen’s approach to capabilities and development, has no lasting meaning apart from a collective, dense, and supple horizon of hopes and wants. Absent such a horizon, freedom descends to choice, rational or otherwise, informed or not. (p. 82)

$SSDGXUDLLGHQWL¿HVWZRRWKHUNH\FDSDFLWLHVWKDWDUHLQWHUUHODWHGZLWK the capacity to aspire. Both have implications for this research project and, according to Appadurai (2004), are integral for participating in democratic society more broadly.

First, and growing out of the work of Hirschman, is the capacity for voice. Appadurai GH¿QHVWKLVDVWKHFDSDFLW\³to debate, contest, and oppose vital directions for collective social life” (p. 66). Like the capacity to aspire, the capacity for voice is also a cultural capacity, “EHFDXVHIRUYRLFHWRWDNHH൵HFWLWPXVWHQJDJHVRFLDOSROLWLFDO and economic issues in terms of ideologies, doctrines, and norms which are widely shared and credible” (p. 66). Moreover, it must “be expressed in terms of actions and performances which have local cultural force” (p. 67). Appadurai (2004) argues that it is through strengthening the capacity for voice that the poor, excluded, disadvantaged, DQGPDUJLQDOJURXSVLQVRFLHW\³PLJKW¿QGORFDOO\SODXVLEOHZD\VWRDOWHU«WKHWHUPV of recognition in any particular cultural regime” (p. 66). By terms of recognition, he

is leaning on Taylor and underscoring the “conditions and constraints under which the poor negotiate with the very norms that frame their social lives” (p. 66), norms that RIWHQDGYHUVHO\D൵HFWGLJQLW\HTXDOLW\DQGDFFHVVWRJRRGVDQGVHUYLFHV$SSDGXUDL +RZHYHU$SSDGXUDLDVVHUWVWKDWWKHUHJXODUDQGH൵HFWLYHH[HUFLVH of voice requires enhancing the capacity to aspire, as strengthening the latter better enables negotiating with the norms that frame social lives and thus the “terms of recognition” (Appadurai, 2004, p. 67).

6HFRQGLVWKHFDSDFLW\WRGRUHVHDUFK7KLVKHGH¿QHVEURDGO\DV³WKH capacity to systematically increase the horizons of one’s current knowledge, in relation to some task, goal or aspiration” (p. 176) and the capacity “to make independent inquiries about [one’s] own li[fe] and worl[d]” (p. 173). Thus, he is not necessarily referring to research in the academic sense–or excluding academic research either–

EXWUHIHUULQJWRWKHFDSDFLW\WRV\VWHPDWLFDOO\¿JXUHWKLQJVRXWDQGXVHWKHUHVXOWLQJ knowledge to improve one’s situation. He (2006) argues that “Without aspiration, there is no pressure to know more. And without systematic tools for gaining relevant new knowledge, aspiration degenerates into fantasy or despair (pp. 176-177). Moreover, he (2006) contends that this capacity is also essential for participating in democratic society, as doing so requires one to be informed.