Ancientness and Traditionality: Cultural Intersections of Vocal Music and History in the Republic of Georgia

Drawing on varied sources and personal fieldwork, data suggests the use of Georgian traditional music as a way for modern Georgians to reclaim and re-imagine the past. The history of Georgia and Georgian perspectives of history both gives context for the music and illustrates many modern Georgians' sense of being under siege. Within Georgian ethnomusicology and within the dominant Georgian culture itself, two concepts, "traditionality" and "ancientness," play prominent roles in perspectives of Georgian traditional vocal music and identity formation. After describing traditionality and ancientness in the Georgian context, we explore several roles they play in the formation of Georgian identity. Many current Georgians, in choosing to practice traditionality with their musical performances and perceptions, draw close to their imagined, idealized past. Furthermore, ancientness of Georgian traditional vocal music helps defend the border against the "theoretical other" - whether geographic neighbors or historical oppressors - through difference-making

‘I just don’t ever use that word’: investigating stakeholders’ understanding of heritage

Understanding the value of heritage sites for diverse stakeholders requires both paying attention to the fields of power in which the sites operate and applying methodologies that are open to user-defined paradigms of value. In the U.S., official discourse often frames the value of heritage sites associated the deep Native American past as archaeological sites, an interpretation that is consistent with settler colonial ideologies. This narrative generally obfuscates connections between the heritage of the sites and contemporary peoples, and it effaces the history of colonialism and dispossession. A study of stakeholder-defined heritage at two contested sites in the central Midwest revealed both congruencies and conflicts among diverse constituencies’ articulations of the sites’ value. At Mounds State Park a proposed dam and reservoir ‘Mounds Lake’ project would inundate a large portion of the site. At Strawtown Koteewi, Native American tribes have made repatriation claims under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).The study also problematised the term ‘cultural heritage’ as it is understood and used by the different constituencies, particularly for culturally and historically affiliated Native Americans. It also highlighted the positions of the constituencies within the broader fields of power implicated in these contested sites