The Political Potency of Tibetan Identity in Pop Music and Dunglen

Since their beginnings in the 1980s, Tibetan pop music and dunglen (lute songs of northeastern Tibet) have shown strong expressions of Tibetan identity. They also represent a flourishing area of Tibetan language cultural production. This is significant after the repetitive propaganda songs of the Cultural Revolution and given the pressures and restrictions in Tibet on language and religion in particular. However, in this article, I critique straightforward interpretations of the Tibetanness of Tibetan popular music as representing a zone of assertion or resistance, arguing instead that the political potency of Tibetan pop music and dunglen is far more double-edged, coopted and complex. Drawing on ethnography, I describe how state institutions and largely Tibetan cultural workers have in fact played the leading role in its genesis and production and are still a powerful force in its production and dissemination. Moreover, while it is often said that the state is against Tibetan identity and culture, in fact, the attitude is far more ambivalent and contradictory, with China a unitary multi-ethnic state where 55 minority nationalities with distinct culture and identity are recognized, including Tibetans. I argue through the analysis of song lyrics that expressions of Tibetan identity per se are not censored; rather, it is when these expressions are linked to particular political demands. As I explore, a number of reasons can be identified as to why the state does not censor Tibetan pop music and dunglen more harshly, and furthermore, there are reasons why Tibetan language assertion has had so much more success in the realm of pop music than it has had in schools

Unity and discord: Music and politics in contemporary Tibet

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on interviews with Tibetans brought up in Tibet carried out by TIN researchers, as well as a range of published and unpublished material.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

Music, Identity, and Community

This chapter discusses the role of music in the imagination of self, community, and nation. It includes topics such as Tibetan pop music, ‘anti-extremism’ campaigns in Xinjiang, Cantopop in Hong Kong, and contemporary revivals of ‘red songs’

Gregory D. Booh and Bradley Shope (eds.), More than Bollywood: Studies in Indian popular music (2013)

no abstract --- JSTOR link to article (restricted access) https://www.jstor.org/stable/2431818