A Mysterious Island in the Digital Age: Technology and Musical Life in Ulleungdo, South Korea

This paper contributes to the growing body of ethnomusicological research about music-making on small islands, focusing on the remote South Korean island of Ulleungdo (literally, ‘Mysterious Island’). Historically, a number of factors have conspired to present serious obstacles to the Ulleungdo islanders' musical aspirations. However, since the early 1990s, enterprising amateurs have managed to generate and maintain a variety of musical activities in spite of these obstacles: church ensembles, karaoke, saxophone clubs, and more. Paralleling other island music studies, this paper seeks to show how the condition of being an Ulleungdo islander—entailing a complex of varied experiences, values, and relationships—has informed music-making over the years. However, here, the discussion remains firmly focused upon the islanders' use of technology since an acute reliance on technology has come to permeate Ulleungdo's musical life, with certain electronic devices commonly regarded as essential facilitators of musical expression. Drawing from the islanders' own testimonies, studies of Ulleungdo's cultural history, and works addressing technology's applications within and effects upon local communities, the authors explore how and why this condition of musical techno-reliance developed, how it is manifest in the present-day, and its broader implications for the island's music culture and identity

20. Musique et développement : le rôle du zouk en Guadeloupe

Depuis le début des années quatre-vingt, le zouk a représenté un terrain contesté, un lieu de débat où la question d’identité et ses enjeux politiques, social, culturel, et économique ont été soulevés avec force autant par ses fans que par ses détracteurs. Cette communication ne vise en aucun cas à trancher la question en présentant le zouk comme solution ou source des problèmes auxquels l’ensemble de la population guadeloupéenne fait face aujourd’hui. Il s’agit plutôt de situer comment, d’un..

Discordant Beats of Pleasure Amidst Everyday Violence: The Cultural Work of Party Music in Trinidad

In spaces of violence, scholars and activists have typically addressed music as sites of resistance. In postcolonial Caribbean, the focus of most studies unsurprisingly has thus been placed on the work music has done for the oppressed or conversely on the ways the (neo)colonial regimes have used music to increase their control over the masses. Until recently, few publications have addressed the music that has been performed to fortify and gather people together in times of hardship. In this case, what is at stake is not so much a matter of “us and dem” or of resistance, but rather the ways in which the “us” is mobilized to strengthen senses of belonging and networks of solidarity. Amidst the escalating everyday violence since the mid-1990s, party music in Trinidad continues to thrive. Instead of dismissing such music as merely a source of escapism or hedonism, I want to examine what makes it so compelling and what it does for people. This paper is based on in-depth study of soca music making and numerous ethnographic interviews with Trinidadian soca artists and fans over the past fifteen years

Interpretation out of Contradiction: A World of Music in the West Indies

This paper addresses the researcher's double challenge: to acknowledge and situate contrasting experiences of the same phenomenon and yet to integrate them into a personal rendition of that phenomenon. An examination of the various strategies employed in ethnographic writing, from the copious use of quotations to dialogical or polyphonic writing, shows how contradictory viewpoints have been given more attention in ethnographic literature, as the politics of representation have developed into an important debate in the social sciences. While these various approaches have undeniably allowed more voices to be heard, they have nevertheless left unanswered the problem of interpretation in the case of contested appropriations or contradictory versions of the same phenomenon. The simple fact of integrating various voices in an ethnography does not indeed constitute in an by itself an explanation of what is being said and why.This paper examines possible uses and treatments of diverging voices in ethnographic writing. By way of illustration, I emphasize the great complexity of the responses and interpretations generated by zouk, a mass-distributed popular music from the West Indies, by presenting contrasting voices and viewpoints from the islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Domenica, and Haiti. By doing so, I show, on the one hand, how each viewpoint can provide distinct types of knowledge. On the other hand, I argue that while there can be no analysis which can provide final answers to the questions raised by controversial phenomenon such as zouk, not all the points of view should be accorded the same importance

Musical Events in the Lives of the People of a Caribbean Island, St. Lucia (Creole Culture, Interpretation).

This work is an ethnomusicological study of St. Lucian musical events, and their cultural implications. Focusing largely on ethnographic details, it is also an exercise in theory and method. This study includes a detailed description of four of the most common types of St. Lucian musical events: seances of La Rose and La Marguerite organizations; debot evenings (evenings which consist primarily of dancing the debot dances), full moon gatherings, and beach parties; kwadril evenings (evenings in which almost exclusively kwadril sets are performed); and wake celebrations. The study begins with a review of certain features of local consciousness, local knowledge, and local terms as they apply to musical events. The form and content of each musical event are discussed in relation to other musical events, characteristic melodies, the associated gestures and movements, and their historical associations. Using this material, I have mapped the complex web of relationships among St. Lucian musical genres. A study of the sets of constraints operative in the four musical events helps us to appreciate how the various musical expressions and attitudes adopted by the performers are appropriately selected to fit each given situation. Finally, the four musical events are examined in relation to a larger system of St. Lucian values. The discussion serves to establish a series of metaphors which link different realms of St. Lucian discourse, and to lead us toward an understanding of some of the major St. Lucian values operating across genres. The generalizations drawn from this research were repeatedly tested, in the field, against new circumstances and new occasions. The fundamental goal of this study is to come to a closer understanding of the St. Lucian system of meanings as expressed in musical events. This study is meant to illustrate the value of (1) using native constructs as analytical tools; (2) focusing primarily on native-language texts; and (3) attempting to find wider cultural patterns reflected in musical performances. The work is copiously illustrated with Creole songtexts and musical examples. Recordings of these musical examples are available at the Archives of Traditional Music, at Indiana.Ph.D.MusicUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/160137/1/8422240.pd