Musical Performance in the Diaspora

This book illustrates how ethnographic investigation of musical performances might contribute to the analysis of diaspora. It embraces diverse examples such as mourning and cultures of survival amongst Aboriginal and Jewish communities in Australia, remembering a Kazakh homeland in Western Mongolia, celebrating Diwali in New Zealand and the circulation of musical performances in Mozambique, Portugal and the UK. Some of the topics discussed in Musical Performance in the Diaspora include:

the expression and shaping of diasporic and postcolonial identities through performance

musical memory in diasporic contexts

the geographies of performance

the politics of new forms of diasporic music-making

This book presents a rich array of theoretical approaches and wide ranging ethnographic case studies to reconsider and challenge discourses that have favoured uncritical notions of diasporic hybridity and to broaden current analyses of performance in the diaspora.