Anna Morcom
University of California, Los Angeles, Ethnomusicology, Faculty Member
- Music, Anthropology, Gender, Popular Culture, Critical Theory, Tibetan Studies, and 82 moreSouth Asian Studies, Ethnomusicology, Media Studies, Bollywood (Anthropology), Indian Cinema, Bollywood Costumes, Political Economy, Globalization, Applied Ethnomusicology, Nationalism, New Media, Postcolonial Studies, Contemporary China, Anthropology of Tibet and the Himalayas, Neoliberal Economies in the Postcolony, Social Movements, Political Ecology, Indigeneity, Cultures of Disposession, Urban Form in Asia, Non-Linear Systems, Fieldwork and Disruptive Epistemologies, Biopolitics, India, Development Studies, Politics, Music and Media, Popular Music, Indigenous Media, Cultural Sustainability, Sociology of Music, Cultural Sociology, Indian Music, Film Music And Sound, Applied, engaged, and public anthropology, Performance Studies, Dance Studies, Anthropology Of Dance, Queer Theory, Queer Studies, Tibetan and Himalayan societies, Himalayan culture, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, Human Rights, Identity politics, David Harvey, Human Economy, Work and Labour, Economic Anthropology, Popular Music Studies, Digital Media, Country Music, Tibetan diaspora, Cultural Studies, Sexuality, Media, Film, Literature, Poststructuralist Theory, Feminist Theory, Gender Studies, Classical and Contemporary Social Theory, Sociology of Culture, Historical and Comparative Sociology, Sociology of the State, Cultural Policy, Cultural Globalization, Epistemology of the Social Sciences, Sociology of Knowledge, Social Theory, Sociology, Ethnography, Media and Cultural Studies, China, Music and Politics, Minority Studies, Media and Democracy, Anthropology of Media, Chinese minorities, Neoliberalism, Music of South Asia, Capitalism, History of Capitalism, Informal economies, Power, Social Exclusion, Creative Industries, Economic History, History of Economic Thought, Modern Indian History, Local VCD Industries, and Exile Tibetedit
- Anna Morcom works on music and dance in India and Tibet from diverse perspectives that seek to understand the contemp... moreAnna Morcom works on music and dance in India and Tibet from diverse perspectives that seek to understand the contemporary world and processes of change in and through musical culture. Her research is ethnographically-based and interdisciplinary and encompasses traditional as well as popular musics. Her publications include Unity and discord: Music and politics in contemporary Tibet (2004, Tibet Information Network); Hindi film songs and the cinema (2007, Ashgate); Illicit worlds of Indian dance: Cultures of exclusion (2013, Hurst and OUP); and articles in a range of peer-reviewed journals - Ethnomusicology, Popular Music, Yearbook for Traditional Music, Ethnomusicology Forum, Consumption, Markets and Culture, South Asian Film and Media, Cultural and Social History, and HIMALAYA. She made a VCD album of Tibetan songs with the singer Tanzin Gyatso in Tibet in 2006, entitled sPrin Gyi Metok (‘Cloud flowers).
In 2014, Illicit worlds of Indian dance was awarded the Society of Ethnomusicology's Allan Merriam prize and the Marcia Herndon prize of SEM's Gender and Sexualities section. Her research has been supported by a number of grants from the Leverhulme Trust and the British Academy. She is the founder of SEM's Special Interest Group on Economic Ethnomusicology. Anna Morcom has been interviewed on Illicit worlds of Indian dance by various UK media including BBC Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed (link), and by India-based media including the national newspaper, The Hindu (link), the leading social justice magazine, Tehelka, and the independent news, information and entertainment organisation Scroll (link)edit
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Since their beginnings in the 1930s, Hindi films and film songs have dominated popular culture in South Asia and the diaspora. They have also gained considerable popularity among other audiences in Russia, the Middle East, parts of... more
Since their beginnings in the 1930s, Hindi films and film songs have dominated popular culture in South Asia and the diaspora. They have also gained considerable popularity among other audiences in Russia, the Middle East, parts of Africa, and have more recently been making their presence felt in mainstream British and US popular culture. Hindi film songs have been described on the one hand as heavily standardized, and on the other as highly eclectic. Their commercial success is similarly paradoxical.Anna Morcom examines the subject from the perspectives of ethnomusicology, popular music studies, film music studies and South Asian studies. The unique findings of this book illustrate that the primary context of Hindi film songs is not just the culture and society of South Asia, but also the world created by their parent films and Hindi cinema in general. Morcom argues that film song as a musical style and as a commercial and social phenomenon does not make sense unless the cinematic context is taken into account. The relationship of film songs and films is explored at the levels of production, musical style, commercial life and audience reception.
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Chinese rule in Tibetan areas of the People’s Republic of China (‘Tibet’) has resulted in two extreme and deeply entrenched positions held by the Chinese authorities and the Tibetan exile government, and a host of other viewpoints held... more
Chinese rule in Tibetan areas of the People’s Republic of China (‘Tibet’) has resulted in two extreme and deeply entrenched positions held by the Chinese authorities and the Tibetan exile government, and a host of other viewpoints held Tibetans living in or
between Tibet and exile concerning Tibet’s political status and cultural identity. Whilst religion and political prisoners have become the focus of the most violent and overt political confrontations in and about Tibet, music has become profoundly involved with the various political standpoints, and has been used by all parties to express ideology and denounce opposing ideology.
This book examines the ways in which non-monastic music has been and is being used to serve politics, or has been changed due to political ideology in Tibet since the 1950s, and some of the consequences of this politicisation on the musical traditions themselves and Tibetan cultural identity. It draws on over 30 formal interviews with Tibetans brought up in Tibet, as well as a range of published material. This study discusses musical style and performance as well as song lyrics. Although lyrics are the most apparent vehicle for political agenda in music, musical and performance style carry just as potent messages, and have been restricted, controlled and mobilised to serve political ends as much as lyrics.
between Tibet and exile concerning Tibet’s political status and cultural identity. Whilst religion and political prisoners have become the focus of the most violent and overt political confrontations in and about Tibet, music has become profoundly involved with the various political standpoints, and has been used by all parties to express ideology and denounce opposing ideology.
This book examines the ways in which non-monastic music has been and is being used to serve politics, or has been changed due to political ideology in Tibet since the 1950s, and some of the consequences of this politicisation on the musical traditions themselves and Tibetan cultural identity. It draws on over 30 formal interviews with Tibetans brought up in Tibet, as well as a range of published material. This study discusses musical style and performance as well as song lyrics. Although lyrics are the most apparent vehicle for political agenda in music, musical and performance style carry just as potent messages, and have been restricted, controlled and mobilised to serve political ends as much as lyrics.
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Since the late 1990s, a thriving scene of pop music has developed among the numerically very small and globally highly dispersed Tibetan exile community. This clearly connects it with globalisation and the spread of what is termed the... more
Since the late 1990s, a thriving scene of pop music has developed among the numerically very small and globally highly dispersed Tibetan exile community. This clearly connects it with globalisation and the spread of what is termed the neoliberal phase of capitalism to India and Nepal where most Tibetan exiles live, and the related spread of digital recording technology and facilities – commodities produced by often large, multinational corporations. Yet this micro industry is not profitable, and even though it is pop music and monetised, it is not ‘commercial’, and in fact is seen and structured more as ‘community work’. Exile Tibetan pop music thus cannot be located outside of capitalism, yet at the same time it is not in and of itself capitalist. In this paper, the author explores new ways in which we can locate music in capitalism, looking beyond the ideas of commercialism or commoditisation and takeover or resistance that have dominated theoretical approaches since Adorno and ha...
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This chapter uses Hindustani music as a case study, developing anthropology’s theoretical work on value and exchange toward the analysis of music. It focuses on the action-based theory of value devised by Nancy Munn (1986) and later... more
This chapter uses Hindustani music as a case study, developing anthropology’s theoretical work on value and exchange toward the analysis of music. It focuses on the action-based theory of value devised by Nancy Munn (1986) and later developed by David Graeber (2001). Rather than something residing “in the music,” value is viewed as entirely social, and ephemeral, generated by acts and the codification of acts into distinctive patterned aesthetic forms. The chapter refines the analysis through Annette Weiner’s concept of “inalienable possessions,” that is, things which are not necessarily costly or of any objective value, but have gained immeasurable and irreplaceable value to particular groups in particular times and places through “keeping while giving,” and which inscribe lineage, heredity, and history. This enables an exploration of how history and transmission operate in value creation in the context of music and performing arts. The chapter also develops theoretical work on exc...
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<p>This chapter explores the Hindi film orchestra in historical, social and cinematic contexts. It charts the place, meaning and status of the western orchestra in Indian cinema from the silent era through the post-Independence... more
<p>This chapter explores the Hindi film orchestra in historical, social and cinematic contexts. It charts the place, meaning and status of the western orchestra in Indian cinema from the silent era through the post-Independence period to the marked changes that have occurred since India's liberalization from the 1990s. Although western classical music was not adopted and institutionalized in the mainstream in India (unlike East Asia, for example), this chapter demonstrates how it nevertheless became interwoven with Indian postcolonial modernity in a powerful yet largely background and thus unseen form through the cinema. Recently, with India's intensive globalization, the orchestra is showing signs of acquiring a more visibly mediated status in Indian film music and in India more generally.</p>
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This article traces the changes and transformations of Tibetan dance that have occurred since 1950. It looks at how agents of change ranging from small groups of Tibetans to the Chinese state create, negotiate, and represent... more
This article traces the changes and transformations of Tibetan dance that have occurred since 1950. It looks at how agents of change ranging from small groups of Tibetans to the Chinese state create, negotiate, and represent differentkindsofTibetanmodernitiesthroughreconstructionsandreconfigurations ofTibetandance,anditexamineshowdanceismodernized,thekindsofmodernity represented, and the social and political power dynamics involved. In particular, the article looks at the repercussions on dance of the recent state-sponsored economic development of Tibet that has resulted in the formation of new urban middleclassesbutalsoadramaticgrowthindisparity.Italsoexaminestheimpact on dance culture of the growth of heterogeneous communities in the increasingly mobile population of contemporary Tibet. The article further addresses the issue of globalization, which sees new layers being added to the social and cultural hierarchies of twenty-first century Tibet.
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Before the early to mid-twentieth century, performing professionally in front of men or in public was generally incompatible with marriage and ‘respectability’ for women in India. Anna Morcom traces the origins of professional female... more
Before the early to mid-twentieth century, performing professionally in front of men or in public was generally incompatible with marriage and ‘respectability’ for women in India. Anna Morcom traces the origins of professional female performers from hereditary groups of courtesans or dancing girls who did not marry, or males performing female roles. Male performers included transvestite female impersonators and men identifying as females—transgender female performers. She describes how, in today’s India, the esteemed classical performing arts are overwhelmingly the preserve of middle-class and upper-caste performers and institutions. Courtesans as such have no role, let alone cross-dressed males. Although performing in public has not entirely lost its ambiguity for women in India, especially as a profession, the middle class’ acceptance of dancing has nevertheless continued to widen and since the 1990s a Bollywood scene has emerged which is overtly sexy and sensual, but is not consi...
India’s Kathak Dance in Historical Perspective is an important addition to what has become a well-established body of work dating from the 1980s that challenges common histories of Indian classical...
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Research on gender in ethnomusicology has proliferated since the publication of Ellen Koskoff's edited volume in 1989, and there is now a wealth of article-length studies and a number of monographs...
Phursang Kelak Lama: Tibetan Buddhist Religious Music from the Kagyu School. 2017. Pan Records 2064. Recorded by Michael Monhart (tracks 1–4) and Bernard Kleikamp (tracks 5–15). Annotated by Michael Monhart (tracks 1–13) and Bernard Kleikamp (tracks 14–15). Produced by Bernard Kleikamp. 12-page b...more
In this article, I explore the dramatic substance of Hindi film songs through an approach based in performance studies, which presents performance as the very stuff of social life, social identities and social power. Given this, the... more
In this article, I explore the dramatic substance of Hindi film songs through an approach based in performance studies, which presents performance as the very stuff of social life, social identities and social power. Given this, the enactment of song sequences in the Hindi film narrative cannot be dramatically benign, or just excess, or just pleasure (however intense). I describe how song sequences perform and thereby manifest and reify love and romance in the film narrative. Using work on public spectacle and power by Foucault and the public sphere by Vasudevan, I further analyse how they connect the public, emotions of love, and social or familial struggle in various ways, embodying key nodes of melodrama. I then reflect, in these terms, on the recent curtailment of performed songs in Hindi films. I thereby present a new method for analysing the dramatic agency of screened or background songs in films.
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Page 1. ANNA MORCOM. An understanding between Bollywood and Hollywood? The meaning of Hollywood-style music in Hindi films The symphonic style of Hollywood film music has become a standard part of the background ...
... methodological approaches are equally diverse and comprehensive, including primarily ethnographic studies of industry (Booth, Adamu), film music in ... Project MUSE | 2715 North Charles Street | Baltimore, Maryland USA 21218 | (410)... more
... methodological approaches are equally diverse and comprehensive, including primarily ethnographic studies of industry (Booth, Adamu), film music in ... Project MUSE | 2715 North Charles Street | Baltimore, Maryland USA 21218 | (410) 516-6989 | About | Contact | Help | Tools ...
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Tibetan popular music, emerging in the 1980s following the end of the Socialist period, is steeped in images of the natural environment, with lyrical and visual imagery describing and celebrating Tibet’s culture and landscape. Since 2000... more
Tibetan popular music, emerging in the 1980s following the end of the Socialist period, is steeped in images of the natural environment, with lyrical and visual imagery describing and celebrating Tibet’s culture and landscape. Since 2000 and the beginning of the video CD (VCD) era, music videos have often come to consist entirely of footage that situates the singer in Tibet’s stunning, distinctive natural scenery, evoking an immovable and authentic Tibetanness. However, comparing traditional folk songs of rural life with popular songs, a profound restructuring of Tibetan identity and belonging in relationship to the land and natural environment is evident, with land presented as landscape, in a distanced and aestheticised form, rather than a place to live and work on. These changes parallel, to a remarkable degree, what Cosgrove describes as the “landscape idea” in European art and literature from the Renaissance; this new way of relating to the natural world emerged during the broad transition from feudalism to capitalism, in tandem with private ownership and an urban-based civilization. In this article, I situate the “landscape idea” of Tibetan popular songs in the context of the capitalist modernisation of Tibet, which has been particularly intensive since 2000, with dramatic (state subsidised) economic growth leading to rapid urbanisation. This has included resettlement of rural Tibetans in urban or peri-urban areas, and fencing and other forms of privatisation of grazing pastures. I also explore how the “landscape idea” pervades both nationalist and non-nationalist Tibetan popular songs, locating nationalism within capitalist modernity.
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This article explores ways of theorizing cultural change in contexts of liberalization and rapid economic growth. I focus on post-1990s India, looking on the one hand at the emergence of a Bollywood dance craze within middle class... more
This article explores ways of theorizing cultural change in contexts of liberalization and rapid economic growth. I focus on post-1990s India, looking on the one hand at the emergence of a Bollywood dance craze within middle class (transnational) India, and, on the other hand, at the rise of dance bars, where girls danced seductively for a male audience, a phenomenon that was subject to a vigorous moral campaign and a ban. I explore capitalism in its ability to (indiscriminately) fuel, scale, and feed phenomena as well as its production of class and disparity. I also look at lavish expenditure and ostentatious show in contexts of music and dance, exploring the connections yet contradictions of the vast surpluses of capitalism, the use of performing arts as a medium to display this money-power as status, and ideologies of productivity and industriousness and, on the other hand, of waste. I further analyze the unevenness, unintended consequences, and powerfully moral dimensions of (neoliberal) capitalism through contextualizing it as a form of liberalism. Thus I examine the ways in which we can understand the sheer pervasiveness of capitalism and its transformational power, yet also its unevenness and unpredictability, its dystopias as well as utopias.
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Since the late 1990s, a thriving scene of pop music has developed among the numerically very small and globally highly dispersed Tibetan exile community. This clearly connects it with globalisation and the spread of what is termed the... more
Since the late 1990s, a thriving scene of pop music has developed among the numerically very small and globally highly dispersed Tibetan exile community. This clearly connects it with globalisation and the spread of what is termed the neoliberal phase of capitalism to India and Nepal where most Tibetan exiles live, and the related spread of digital recording technology and facilities – com- modities produced by often large, multinational corporations. Yet this micro industry is not profit- able, and even though it is pop music and monetised, it is not ‘commercial’, and in fact is seen and structured more as ‘community work’. Exile Tibetan pop music thus cannot be located outside of capitalism, yet at the same time it is not in and of itself capitalist. In this paper, the author explores new ways in which we can locate music in capitalism, looking beyond the ideas of commercialism or commoditisation and takeover or resistance that have dominated theoretical approaches since Adorno and have fixed popular music especially with a still-enduring ‘capitalist’ image. The author draws in particular on the historian Fernand Braudel’s model of capitalism as an ‘anti-market’ that lies ‘on top’ of other social and economic layers. Thus capitalism exerts global hegemony, yet there remain uneven spaces such as exile Tibetan pop music, which are in and of themselves not capitalist, existing within it and because of it. (pdf accessible on: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=9682572&jid=PMU&volumeId=34&issueId=02&aid=9682547&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession= )
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It is fairly well known that from the late nineteenth century, professional, hereditary female performers (both devadasis and courtesans) began to be stigmatised and declared to be ‘prostitutes’ by purity campaigns. This anti-nautch... more
It is fairly well known that from the late nineteenth century, professional, hereditary female performers (both devadasis and courtesans) began to be stigmatised and declared to be ‘prostitutes’ by purity campaigns. This anti-nautch campaign, along with other colonial policies, resulted in the disappearance of these female performers from the classical performing arts and the cinema, with middle class, upper class and upper caste women replacing them.
Many literary and cinematic texts tell of the demise of the old order, or the ‘saving’ of courtesans through marriage and respectability. However, these communities of women did not cease to be. Rather, they slipped down the cultural hierarchy, and below the radar of ‘Indian Culture’, and came to constitute a realm of illicit performing arts. Increasingly marginalised from an identity and livelihood of performing, they became more involved in transactional sex work.
While the roots of this process of marginalisation were in the colonial period, the process has continued, even in some ways accelerating in independent India. In the last 10-20 years, hereditary female public/erotic performers cite intense difficulty in continuing a livelihood of even lower status dance, and are increasingly living as commercial sex workers. In a close parallel to courtesans and nautch girls, transgender males who also performed in public as females are also increasingly marginalised from a livelihood of performing, and are being seen more and more as sex workers.
In this paper, I outline this illicit world of performing arts in North India, from transgender boys, to disenfranchised courtesans or nautch girls, to bar girls. I then examine the continuation and even acceleration of processes of marginalisation in postcolonial India that began in colonial India, analysing how these trajectories of change and exclusion have been able to progress. In particular, I look at the role of key discourses of modernity and development, the value and place of performing arts within Indian nationalism, and forms of belonging and not-belonging. I also examine the case of the bar girls of Mumbai, and possible new strategies of inclusion
Many literary and cinematic texts tell of the demise of the old order, or the ‘saving’ of courtesans through marriage and respectability. However, these communities of women did not cease to be. Rather, they slipped down the cultural hierarchy, and below the radar of ‘Indian Culture’, and came to constitute a realm of illicit performing arts. Increasingly marginalised from an identity and livelihood of performing, they became more involved in transactional sex work.
While the roots of this process of marginalisation were in the colonial period, the process has continued, even in some ways accelerating in independent India. In the last 10-20 years, hereditary female public/erotic performers cite intense difficulty in continuing a livelihood of even lower status dance, and are increasingly living as commercial sex workers. In a close parallel to courtesans and nautch girls, transgender males who also performed in public as females are also increasingly marginalised from a livelihood of performing, and are being seen more and more as sex workers.
In this paper, I outline this illicit world of performing arts in North India, from transgender boys, to disenfranchised courtesans or nautch girls, to bar girls. I then examine the continuation and even acceleration of processes of marginalisation in postcolonial India that began in colonial India, analysing how these trajectories of change and exclusion have been able to progress. In particular, I look at the role of key discourses of modernity and development, the value and place of performing arts within Indian nationalism, and forms of belonging and not-belonging. I also examine the case of the bar girls of Mumbai, and possible new strategies of inclusion
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Research Interests: Cultural History, Music, Anthropology, Folklore, Performing Arts, and 18 moreDance Studies, Ethnomusicology, Ethnography, Tibetan Studies, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Identity politics, Nationalism, Music and Politics, Islam in China, Xinjiang, China, Contemporary China, Nationalism & Conflict, Uyghurs, Chinese minorities, Chinese Minority Education, Turkic & Altaic Studies, and Central Asian Societies
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While Bollywood is established as global popular culture, its journey into Tibet has been an idiosyncratic and complex one. Unlike the well-known manifestations of transnational Bollywood, in Tibet, Bollywood is not underpinned by an... more
While Bollywood is established as global popular culture, its journey into Tibet has been an idiosyncratic and complex one. Unlike the well-known manifestations of transnational Bollywood, in Tibet, Bollywood is not underpinned by an Indian diaspora or indeed ‘Islamicate’-based crossovers in the cultural and linguistic expression of romance. Furthermore, there is no legal import of Bollywood films or music into China’s still protectionist cultural market, and zero attempts by Bombay producers to target China as yet. This ethnographically-based article describes Bollywood in Tibet in live and recorded performing arts, analyzing in historical perspective the legal and illegal flows of people and goods, as well as other ties between Tibet and India and South Asia that drive this fashionable corner of Tibetan popular culture. This article also explores how Bollywood (and India) slot into the context of Chinese multiculturalism as an exotic and also erotic ‘other’.The article as a whole highlights the historical as well as the modern forces of globalization, seeing the roots of Bollywood in Tibet as lying in ancient ties between Tibet and India and also Nepal, as well as in modern tourism and trade. This pointsto the fluidity of cultural topographies and trajectories in the pre-modern world. The article also emphasizes how far the ‘globalization’ of Bollywood is due to specific regional and national issues, most notably, the nationalist project of the PRC which brought into being exile Tibet in India and Nepal as a kind of ‘collateral damage’.
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This paper proposes the use of the term ‘screened music’ as a means of encompassing a broad range of methodological approaches that emphasise agency, process and context, moving beyond the extant focus on Western musical traditions... more
This paper proposes the use of the term ‘screened music’ as a means of encompassing a broad range of methodological approaches that emphasise agency, process and context, moving beyond the extant focus on Western musical traditions associated with film music analysis. It argues that perspectives from ethnomusicology offer new possibilities for understanding screened musics in their numerous forms. In particular, focus on practitioner perspectives and self-reflexive ethnography can provide insights into industrial and political processes as well as issues relating to ethics and responsibility. The notion of agency as embedded in processes of de- re- and trans-contextualisation offers new ways to explore the use of ‘exotic’ or hegemonic musics, as well as the emergence and development of style. This paper also considers issues of representation, including problematic stereotyping of the ‘primitive other’, national identity, code formation and viral re-signification.
... Now, I am singing this Rag Yaman, it has got seven notes, the fourth note is sharp [sings ascending phrase] so [sings ascending phrase with natural fourth], I cannot use that. ... What Mr Yash Chopra likes may not be what [the late]... more
... Now, I am singing this Rag Yaman, it has got seven notes, the fourth note is sharp [sings ascending phrase] so [sings ascending phrase with natural fourth], I cannot use that. ... What Mr Yash Chopra likes may not be what [the late] Raj Kapoor liked. They have different taste. ...
This article is an ethnographic study of the production of recorded music and popular music culture in Tibet, examining who gets their voice heard and how, and the roles played by the state, the independent realm that has emerged since... more
This article is an ethnographic study of the production of recorded music and popular music culture in Tibet, examining who gets their voice heard and how, and the roles played by the state, the independent realm that has emerged since the late 1980s, and the illegal/pirate sphere that has also resulted from economic liberalisation. While the question of IPR violations in China has become a global issue, it is largely discussed in the context of big, multi‐national business. This article examines the little known implications of China’s IPR and piracy issues for the production of minority culture.
Since the 1950s, the debate on Tibetan culture has centred on issues of political repression. This article aims to open up socio‐economic factors and international legal and trade issues as crucial to the question of cultural expression and identity in Tibet, now China is connected to global capitalism.
Since the 1950s, the debate on Tibetan culture has centred on issues of political repression. This article aims to open up socio‐economic factors and international legal and trade issues as crucial to the question of cultural expression and identity in Tibet, now China is connected to global capitalism.
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Media and Cultural Studies, Popular Music, Ethnomusicology, and 25 moreEthnography, Popular Culture, Tibetan Studies, Music Video, Identity politics, Music and Politics, Music and Media, Islam in China, Minority Studies, Sociology of Music, Media and Democracy, Xinjiang, China, Anthropology of Media, Sociology of the Media, Political Economy of the Media, Identity construction and cultural production, Contemporary China, Nationalism & Conflict, Uyghurs, Chinese minorities, Creative and Cultural Industries, Chinese Minority Education, Turkic & Altaic Studies, and Central Asian Societies
Towards the end of the first decade of the new millennium ‘Bollywood’ can be seen as having gained unprecedented cultural legitimacy in India and worldwide. This is even apparent on the level of official representations of India, with... more
Towards the end of the first decade of the new millennium ‘Bollywood’ can be seen as having gained unprecedented cultural legitimacy in India and worldwide. This is even apparent on the level of official representations of India, with stars dancing to film songs at the closing ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Australia. With the new extension of legitimate culture beyond the boundaries of classical or folk into the realm of the popular, there is a sense that the culture of ‘the people’, ‘the masses’, is embraced, validated, approved. However, that 75,000 ‘bar girls’ who danced to Bollywood numbers in beer bars in Mumbai were made redundant in August 2005 following a virulent moral campaign indicates that areas of Bollywood culture exist that are by no means legitimised. Beginning with an examination of the Bollywood dance craze that has become one of the trendiest parts of globalised India and then moving onto ‘other’ arenas of Bollywood dance starting with the bar girls, this chapter seeks to problematise the question of ‘the people’ in Indian popular culture through an examination of hierarchies and processes of inclusion and exclusion at work within the popular sphere.
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This article traces the changes and transformations of Tibetan dance that have occurred since 1950, looking at how agents of change ranging from small groups of Tibetans to the Chinese state create, negotiate, and represent different... more
This article traces the changes and transformations of Tibetan dance that have occurred since 1950, looking at how agents of change ranging from small groups of Tibetans to the Chinese state create, negotiate, and represent different kinds of Tibetan modernities through reconstructions and reconfigurations of Tibetan dance, examining how dance is modernized, the kinds of modernity represented, and the social and political power dynamics involved. In particular, the article looks at the repercussions on dance of the recent state-sponsored economic development of Tibet that has resulted in the formation of new urban middle classes but also a dramatic growth in disparity. It also examines the impact on dance culture of the growth of heterogeneous communities in the increasingly mobile population of contemporary Tibet. The article further addresses the issue of globalization, which sees new layers being added to the social and cultural hierarchies of twenty-first century Tibet.
Research Interests: Music, Development Economics, Anthropology, Social Policy, Performing Arts, and 27 moreDevelopment Studies, Dance Studies, Popular Music, Ethnomusicology, Ethnography, Popular Culture, Tibetan Studies, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Himalayan culture, Nationalism, Islam in China, Sociology of Music, National Identity, Xinjiang, China, Neoliberalism, Education and Labor Markets, Anthropology of Tibet and the Himalayas, Contemporary China, Social Inequality (Anthropology), Nationalism & Conflict, Uyghurs, Chinese minorities, Poverty and Inequality, Chinese Minority Education, Turkic & Altaic Studies, and Central Asian Societies
The symphonic style of Hollywood film music has become a standard part of the background music, and some of the instrumental sections of songs, in Hindi films since around 1950. Music is used in both songs and backing scores to express... more
The symphonic style of Hollywood film music has become a standard part of the background music, and some of the instrumental sections of songs, in Hindi films since around 1950. Music is used in both songs and backing scores to express aspects of drama and narrative, and Hollywood‐style symphonic music and some of its distinctive techniques have become an important part of that expression. This paper examines some examples of the use of Hollywood‐style music in Hindi films and considers what this phenomenon can tell us about the creation of meaning and affect and the interplay of universal and culture‐specific elements.
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This feature on music and capitalism arises and includes papers from a one-day conference convened by Anna Morcom and held in London in October 2014 entitled “Music and capitalism in historical and cross-cultural perspective” that aimed... more
This feature on music and capitalism arises and includes papers from a one-day conference convened by Anna Morcom and held in London in October 2014 entitled “Music and capitalism in historical and cross-cultural perspective” that aimed to tackle such an (admittedly ambitious) agenda. Given the immensity of capitalism’s spheres of influence and transformation, the conference also sought a range of interdisciplinary speakers. Thus, the essays in this feature are by scholars from (in alphabetical order): Anthropology; Ethnomusicology; History and Literature; Marketing; Media and Communications; Musicology; and Religious Studies. As these essays show, capital has been and remains a form of overarching power in music making across the world. It may be something people seek to consciously or unconsciously mobilize, or to resist, or just to coexist or work with in more or less comfortable ways. As with all forms of power, questions are at the fore concerning who benefits from capitalism and how it affects human life in terms of belonging or alienation, prosperity or exploitation, and energy and creativity. In all cases, the essays show how capitalism has been and remains a dynamic force of change on musical styles and the forms of human sociability they stem from and create. - See more at: http://www.focaalblog.com/features/music-and-capitalism/#sthash.AwTI4GlV.dpuf
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This book examines the role music has played as a political tool in the struggle over Tibet since the 1950s, and exposes some of the consequences of this politicisation on the musical traditions themselves and on Tibetan cultural... more
This book examines the role music has played as a political tool in the struggle over Tibet since the 1950s, and exposes some of the consequences of this politicisation on the musical traditions themselves and on Tibetan cultural identity. It draws on interviews with Tibetans brought up in Tibet carried out by TIN researchers, as well as a range of published and unpublished material. The study provides a historic retrospective of the transformation of Tibetan musical culture during the past half-century. Introducing the ideologies that were brought to bear on Tibetan music as Tibet came under the control of the People's Republic of China in 1951, it describes the development of the actual policies implemented until the early 1980s. It then investigates the vibrant Tibetan pop music scene that has emerged since the late 1980s. Further parts of the book analyse in detail the use of music for Chinese state propaganda, as well as the way Tibetans have used music to express dissent and resist Chinese political, social and cultural domination. It examines the explicit messages and subtexts of propaganda, and questions its effectiveness. It also examines the varying forms of Tibetan 'protest songs', the metaphors used for escaping censorship, the state's reactions and its ultimate failure to fully control the feelings and perceptions of Tibetans. Finally, the book addresses the reactions to the extensive change and in particular, sinicisation of Tibetan musical culture in Tibet. Lyrics of many songs presented in the original Tibetan or Chinese as well as in English translation offer a unique insight into contemporary Tibet and its living musical culture.