Anna Stirr | University of Hawaii at Manoa (original) (raw)
Videos by Anna Stirr
Nepali migrant workers in Bahrain--truck drivers, manual laborers, and performers--address the im... more Nepali migrant workers in Bahrain--truck drivers, manual laborers, and performers--address the importance of popular music in their lives. Companion to the article "Popular Music among Nepalis in Bahrain: Nightclubs, Media, Performance, and Publics" In David Gellner and Sondra Hausner, eds. Global Nepalis: Religion, Culture, and Community in a New and Old Diaspora. New Delhi, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 188-209.
7 views
Journal Articles by Anna Stirr
Jurai Sembah, 2021
Subi Shah (1922-2008) was a Nepali performer and educator whose life's work was to preserve and p... more Subi Shah (1922-2008) was a Nepali performer and educator whose life's work was to preserve and promote Nepali folk genres of music, song, dance, and drama, especially the wide variety of these that make up the tradition known as Pangdure. Raised in this tradition, he became one of its leading exponents. He did so outside of the academy and was thus free from disciplinary strictures. Although he was consulted and honored by state cultural policymakers in the 1980s and 1990s, many of his contributions remain unrecognized. This study analyzes five of his texts, building on my 20 years of engagement as a scholar and performer with the traditions described therein. The objectives of the study are to identify key aspects of Shah's theories of performance. The study finds that Shah's descriptions and analysis of integrated performance practice valorize a performance tradition with its own unique worldviews and theories. It concludes that teaching these worldviews and theories will help maintain the cultural sustainability of this and other Nepali performance traditions, by helping students make connections among the traditionally related aspects of performance; instrumental music, song, poetry, dance, and drama. Further, it demonstrates the broader applicability of Shah's methods for holistic performance scholarship within and beyond Nepal, which contributes to decolonizing ethnomusicology by centering a non-Western theory and methodology from outside the academy.
Himalaya, 2018
This article examines the moral and material economy of "being a musician" (Neuman 1980) in Nepal... more This article examines the moral and material economy of "being a musician" (Neuman 1980) in Nepal's popular folk music industry, which includes the broad genre of lok gīt (folk song) and the more specific subgenre of lok dohori (folk duet song). Through ethnographic attention to a debate about what it means to be an artist, and how musicians can both make a living and earn prestige and honor, I argue that rather than one system of value and exchange dominating social and economic interactions in this music industry today, instead, multiple regimes of value shape artists' choices. I give examples of how musicians in this industry navigate these multiple regimes of value and prestige, and show how fluency in moving among them is increasingly important in making a living as a musician in Nepal's popular folk music world today.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2017
Throughout the history of movement between country and city in the Nepali-speaking areas of the I... more Throughout the history of movement between country and city in the Nepali-speaking areas of the Indian subcontinent, musical links between cities and the rural hills have integrated emotional associations with rural hill life into the fabric of city life. Songs in the thematic genre of viraha-longing and the pain of separation-articulate lyrical and musical tropes that have come to characterise the experience of moving between hill villages, cities, and back again. This article explores over a century of Nepali-language viraha songs related to labour migration, arguing that as these songs take root in translocal publics crossing urban-rural divides, they contribute to an ruralisation of social and emotional life in the cities. Nepal's cities are increasingly translocal spaces marked by mobility. The music of mobile populations brings sounds from rural areas (among others) into urban centres. Multiple soundscapes characterise the cities' multiaccentual spaces. 1 With them come aural ways of knowing, sonic epistemologies or 'acoustemologies' and their concomitant structures of feeling. 2 For nearly twenty years now, nightclubs featuring folk music from Nepal's rural hills have added a particular form of rural sound to the night time soundscapes of Kathmandu and other such urban crossroads. Walking along the streets of the city centres and the areas near the long-distance bus parks of Kathmandu, Pokhara, Narayangadh and other urban areas, you can hear the distinctive beats of Nepali folk songs echoing out the windows and down the street, filling the urban canyons as if they were hill valleys. Throughout the history of movement between rural and urban areas in the Nepali-speaking areas of the subcontinent, these musical genres have created links between cities and the rural hills; thus their emotional associations with rural hill life are also a part of city life. Songs in the thematic genre of viraha-longing and the pain of separation-articulate lyrical and musical tropes that have come to characterise the experience of moving between hill villages, cities, and back again.
This article looks at the deuda¯ songs of Nepal’s far-western region and their relationship with ... more This article looks at the deuda¯ songs of Nepal’s far-western region and their
relationship with changing ideas of Nepal as a nation. Drawn from regional folk dances, deuda¯ songs have become popular in the commercial music industry. The deuda¯ industry is centered in the studios of the far west but has increasingly become part of the central music industry in Kathmandu. However, this has not happened without struggle, and many deuda¯ artists feel that their music and region are marginalized within the country as a whole. In a time of state restructuring after a 10-year civil war, artists in the deuda¯ industry use their music to express aims for national recognition of far-western art and culture as both regionally unique and integrally a part of Nepal. Their focus on inclusivity challenges arguments that deem all
identity politics communally divisive.
Ethnomusicology, Jan 1, 2010
WORLD LITERATURE TODAY, Jan 1, 2008
Book Chapters by Anna Stirr
Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Nepal and the Himalaya (2015), 2019
Global Nepalis: Religion, Culture, and Community in a New and Old Diaspora, 2018
Revolution in Nepal. Edited by Marie Lecomte-Tilouine. Oxford and New Delhi: Oxford University Press., Jul 2013
Music has played important roles in Nepal's twentieth-century nationalizing project, and in the m... more Music has played important roles in Nepal's twentieth-century nationalizing project, and in the more recent Maoist movement. In fact, the musical genres used by Nepali Maoist revolutionaries are often the very same genres employed by the state towards construction of national unity. Both draw on the resources of a national imaginary (Hamilton 1990): a sphere of contested symbols whose appropriation by various groups, for various ends, contribute to the continued construction of ideas of the nation through performance, discourse, and circulating media. Such symbols may include everything from the colors of performers' costumes and styles of dance presented, to the instruments, genres, forms, and styles used in musical composition and its rendering in performance; in performance, they both evoke prior uses and associations, and may be resignified. As ethnomusicologist Mark Slobin (1996:1) puts it, cultural forms like music, to which we may also add dance, drama, poetry, and other expressive practices, are 'stable yet constantly in flux,' and offer 'both striking metaphors and tangible data for understanding societies in moments of transition'.
Red Strains: Music and Communism Outside the Communist Bloc. Edited by Robert Adlington. (Proceedings of the British Academy). Oxford: Oxford University Press., May 2013
Tibetan modernities: notes from the field on …, Jan 1, 2008
Journalism by Anna Stirr
Naya Patrika, 2020
zlgaf/ # h] 7 )&& nayapatrikaofficial @naya_patrika s} nfz / fO{ cf 5} g . / fHosf] gh/ df cfk| j... more zlgaf/ # h] 7 )&& nayapatrikaofficial @naya_patrika s} nfz / fO{ cf 5} g . / fHosf] gh/ df cfk| jf;L dlxnf sfdbf/ ;b[ Zo eP/ klg cb[ Zo 5g\ . klxnf] s' / f, / fHo;F u cfk| jf;L dlxnf sfdbf/ sf] jf: tljs ;+ Vof lgSof] { n ug{ ] ;+ oGq 5} g . >d : jLs[ lt lnP/ ;a} k| lqmof k" / f ug{ ] x¿sf] ljj/ 0f dfq} / fVg] vfnsf] ;+ oGq / fHo;F u 5 . / fHo cfkm} F n] dlxnf sfdbf/ nlIft k| ltalGwt gLlt / P] gsfg' g nfu" u/ ] sfn] pQm ;+ oGqsf] bfo/ fdf lglZrt sfdbf/ dfq} ;d] l6G5g\ . j} b] lzs / f] huf/ af] 8{ sf] tYof+ scg' ¿k uPsf] Ps bzs -@)^%÷^^ b] lv &%÷&^_ sf] cjlwdf s' n #* nfv (* xhf/ $ ;o &( hgf j} b] lzs / f] huf/ df uPsf 5g\ . h;dWo] ! nfv (& xhf/ * ;o & hgf dlxnf 5g\ . of] cfF s8f >d : jLs[ lt lng] x¿sf] dfq} xf] . ha ls )^* sf] hgu0fgfdf pgLx¿s} kl/ jf/ n] lbPsf] ;" rgfsf] cfwf/ df $* xhf/ ^ ;o %^ hgf dlxnf dWok" j{ sf b] zdf cfk| jf;L sfdbf/ sf ¿ksf uPsf] b] vfPsf] lyof] , h' g dWok" j{ sf cfk| jf;LdWo] sf] ^=& k| ltzt xf] . ;/ sf/ L k| lqmof gckgfO{ hfg] x¿sf] clws ;+ Vofdf dlxnfx¿ kg{ ] x' F bf k| jf;L >lds dlxnfx¿sf] jf: tljs ;+ Vof olsg ug{ ;lsGg . tf] lsPadf] lhdsf] sfg' gL k| lqmof k5\ ofP/ j} b] lzs / f] huf/ df hfg] x¿sf] n] vfhf] vf / ;+ / If0fsf] bfloTj dfq} / fHon] jxg ug{ ] u5{ . cfk| jf;L dlxnf sfdbf/ sf] xsdf / fHo gLltut / Jofjxfl/ s ¿kdf cg' bf/ 5 . ljleGg sf/ 0fn] dlxnfx¿ j} b] lzs / f] huf/ df hfg] qmd XjfQ} a9\ of] . t/ , To;nfO{ ;xh / ;sf/ fTds dfGg] dfgl;stf / rngsf] ljsf; Hofb} ;' : t 5 . dlxnfx¿n] lgaf{ w / ;' / lIft ¿kdf >d k| jf;df cfphfp ug{ ] cj: yf 5} g . / fHon] ;' / lIft, Jojl: yt / ;xh >d k| jf;sf] aGbf] a: t ug{ ' sf] ; §f ;' / Iffsf] axfgfdf dlxnfsf] j} b] lzs / f] huf/ dfly k| ltaGw nufpF b} cfPsf] 5 . ;' / Iffsf] gfddf l;lh{ t ;d: of clxn] !!) d' n' sdf g] kfnL gful/ sx¿ cfk| jf;L sfdbf/ sf] ¿kdf sfd ug{ hfg kfpF 5g\ . sfdsf nflu g] kfnLx¿ ljb] z hfg] rng k' / fgf] xf] . ;g\ !(*% df j} b] lzs / f] huf/ P] g lgdf{ 0f u/ ] / pQm k' / fgf] rngnfO{ / fHon] sfg' gL bfo/ fdf leoeofof] . g] kfnsf dlxnf klg lglZrt d' n' ssf >d ahf/ sf] >lds ag] . t/ , k' ?if;/ x h' g;' s} b] zdf dlxnf hfg gkfpg] lgif] wsf] bx| f] kvf{ n / fHon] v8f u¥of] . / fHosf] cg' dlt k| fKt d' n' sdf hfgsf nflu klg sf] xL k' ?if cleefjs -afa' , >Ldfg\ , bfh' -efO jf c¿ cfkmGt_sf] : jLs[ lt klxnf] ;t{ agfOof] . / fHon] cfkm\ gf] lgoGq0fsf] cnfjf kfl/ jfl/ s ta/ d} klg ln+ usf] cfwf/ df dlxnfsf] lxF 8\ 8' n / sfd ug{ ] clwsf/ If] qsf] lgwf{ / 0fstf{ k' ?ifnfO{ tf] Sof] . ;g\ !((* ;Dd of] ;t{ sf] clgjfo{ kfngf ul/ Psf] lyof] . 3/ ] n' lx+ ;f / anfTsf/ sf] l;sf/ ePkl5 ;g\ !((* df s' j] tdf 3/ ] n' sfd ug{ uPsL sfgL z] kf{ n] cfTdxTof ul/ g\ . To;j] nf ;/ sf/ sf] lj/ f] w eof] . To;} sf] ;Daf] wg: j¿k ;' / Iffsf] pkfo cjnDagsf] gfddf ;/ sf/ n] dlxnfnfO{ vf8L d' n' sdf hfg k| ltaGw nufof] . ;g\ @))# df pQm k| ltaGw cf+ lzs km' s' jf ul/ of] . cf} krfl/ s elgg] If] qdf sfd ug{ hfg kfpg] / 3/ fo;L sfdh: tf cgf} krfl/ s elgg] If] qdf sfd ug{ hfg gkfpg] agfOof] . ;g\ @))* df ag] sf] j} b] lzs / f] huf/ P] gn] ln+ usf] cfwf/ df s;} sf] / f] huf/ Lsf] clwsf/ xgg ug{ gkfOg] k| fjwfg t Nofof] , t/ ;g\ @))* d} dlxnfx¿nfO{ vf8L d' n' s hfg lgif] w ul/ of] . dlxnfx¿ sfd ug{ uPsf] 7fpF df ;d: of b] vf k/ ] df pQm d' n' sdf hfg dlxnfx¿nfO{ k| ltaGw nufpF b} uof] . dn] l;of hfg k| ltaGw u¥of] . ;g\ @))( df n] agfgdf g] kfnaf6 uPsf 3/ ] n' dlxnf sfdbf/ x¿n] cfTdxTof u/ ] sf] ;dfrf/ aflxl/ Pkl5 ToxfF hfg g] kfn ;/ sf/ n]
CNN, May 1, 2015
Living on the fault line that has produced the world's highest mountain ranges, the people of Nep... more Living on the fault line that has produced the world's highest mountain ranges, the people of Nepal knew there would be a major earthquake someday.
Yet last Saturday's heartbreaking losses still come as a devastating blow, from which Nepal will take years to recover. As the world pitches in to help with immediate relief, thoughts are also beginning to turn to long-term recovery. In the aftermath of the quake, Nepal's musical traditions can help buoy the resilience and spirit necessary to rebuild the country.
Nepali migrant workers in Bahrain--truck drivers, manual laborers, and performers--address the im... more Nepali migrant workers in Bahrain--truck drivers, manual laborers, and performers--address the importance of popular music in their lives. Companion to the article "Popular Music among Nepalis in Bahrain: Nightclubs, Media, Performance, and Publics" In David Gellner and Sondra Hausner, eds. Global Nepalis: Religion, Culture, and Community in a New and Old Diaspora. New Delhi, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 188-209.
7 views
Jurai Sembah, 2021
Subi Shah (1922-2008) was a Nepali performer and educator whose life's work was to preserve and p... more Subi Shah (1922-2008) was a Nepali performer and educator whose life's work was to preserve and promote Nepali folk genres of music, song, dance, and drama, especially the wide variety of these that make up the tradition known as Pangdure. Raised in this tradition, he became one of its leading exponents. He did so outside of the academy and was thus free from disciplinary strictures. Although he was consulted and honored by state cultural policymakers in the 1980s and 1990s, many of his contributions remain unrecognized. This study analyzes five of his texts, building on my 20 years of engagement as a scholar and performer with the traditions described therein. The objectives of the study are to identify key aspects of Shah's theories of performance. The study finds that Shah's descriptions and analysis of integrated performance practice valorize a performance tradition with its own unique worldviews and theories. It concludes that teaching these worldviews and theories will help maintain the cultural sustainability of this and other Nepali performance traditions, by helping students make connections among the traditionally related aspects of performance; instrumental music, song, poetry, dance, and drama. Further, it demonstrates the broader applicability of Shah's methods for holistic performance scholarship within and beyond Nepal, which contributes to decolonizing ethnomusicology by centering a non-Western theory and methodology from outside the academy.
Himalaya, 2018
This article examines the moral and material economy of "being a musician" (Neuman 1980) in Nepal... more This article examines the moral and material economy of "being a musician" (Neuman 1980) in Nepal's popular folk music industry, which includes the broad genre of lok gīt (folk song) and the more specific subgenre of lok dohori (folk duet song). Through ethnographic attention to a debate about what it means to be an artist, and how musicians can both make a living and earn prestige and honor, I argue that rather than one system of value and exchange dominating social and economic interactions in this music industry today, instead, multiple regimes of value shape artists' choices. I give examples of how musicians in this industry navigate these multiple regimes of value and prestige, and show how fluency in moving among them is increasingly important in making a living as a musician in Nepal's popular folk music world today.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2017
Throughout the history of movement between country and city in the Nepali-speaking areas of the I... more Throughout the history of movement between country and city in the Nepali-speaking areas of the Indian subcontinent, musical links between cities and the rural hills have integrated emotional associations with rural hill life into the fabric of city life. Songs in the thematic genre of viraha-longing and the pain of separation-articulate lyrical and musical tropes that have come to characterise the experience of moving between hill villages, cities, and back again. This article explores over a century of Nepali-language viraha songs related to labour migration, arguing that as these songs take root in translocal publics crossing urban-rural divides, they contribute to an ruralisation of social and emotional life in the cities. Nepal's cities are increasingly translocal spaces marked by mobility. The music of mobile populations brings sounds from rural areas (among others) into urban centres. Multiple soundscapes characterise the cities' multiaccentual spaces. 1 With them come aural ways of knowing, sonic epistemologies or 'acoustemologies' and their concomitant structures of feeling. 2 For nearly twenty years now, nightclubs featuring folk music from Nepal's rural hills have added a particular form of rural sound to the night time soundscapes of Kathmandu and other such urban crossroads. Walking along the streets of the city centres and the areas near the long-distance bus parks of Kathmandu, Pokhara, Narayangadh and other urban areas, you can hear the distinctive beats of Nepali folk songs echoing out the windows and down the street, filling the urban canyons as if they were hill valleys. Throughout the history of movement between rural and urban areas in the Nepali-speaking areas of the subcontinent, these musical genres have created links between cities and the rural hills; thus their emotional associations with rural hill life are also a part of city life. Songs in the thematic genre of viraha-longing and the pain of separation-articulate lyrical and musical tropes that have come to characterise the experience of moving between hill villages, cities, and back again.
This article looks at the deuda¯ songs of Nepal’s far-western region and their relationship with ... more This article looks at the deuda¯ songs of Nepal’s far-western region and their
relationship with changing ideas of Nepal as a nation. Drawn from regional folk dances, deuda¯ songs have become popular in the commercial music industry. The deuda¯ industry is centered in the studios of the far west but has increasingly become part of the central music industry in Kathmandu. However, this has not happened without struggle, and many deuda¯ artists feel that their music and region are marginalized within the country as a whole. In a time of state restructuring after a 10-year civil war, artists in the deuda¯ industry use their music to express aims for national recognition of far-western art and culture as both regionally unique and integrally a part of Nepal. Their focus on inclusivity challenges arguments that deem all
identity politics communally divisive.
Ethnomusicology, Jan 1, 2010
WORLD LITERATURE TODAY, Jan 1, 2008
Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Nepal and the Himalaya (2015), 2019
Global Nepalis: Religion, Culture, and Community in a New and Old Diaspora, 2018
Revolution in Nepal. Edited by Marie Lecomte-Tilouine. Oxford and New Delhi: Oxford University Press., Jul 2013
Music has played important roles in Nepal's twentieth-century nationalizing project, and in the m... more Music has played important roles in Nepal's twentieth-century nationalizing project, and in the more recent Maoist movement. In fact, the musical genres used by Nepali Maoist revolutionaries are often the very same genres employed by the state towards construction of national unity. Both draw on the resources of a national imaginary (Hamilton 1990): a sphere of contested symbols whose appropriation by various groups, for various ends, contribute to the continued construction of ideas of the nation through performance, discourse, and circulating media. Such symbols may include everything from the colors of performers' costumes and styles of dance presented, to the instruments, genres, forms, and styles used in musical composition and its rendering in performance; in performance, they both evoke prior uses and associations, and may be resignified. As ethnomusicologist Mark Slobin (1996:1) puts it, cultural forms like music, to which we may also add dance, drama, poetry, and other expressive practices, are 'stable yet constantly in flux,' and offer 'both striking metaphors and tangible data for understanding societies in moments of transition'.
Red Strains: Music and Communism Outside the Communist Bloc. Edited by Robert Adlington. (Proceedings of the British Academy). Oxford: Oxford University Press., May 2013
Tibetan modernities: notes from the field on …, Jan 1, 2008
Naya Patrika, 2020
zlgaf/ # h] 7 )&& nayapatrikaofficial @naya_patrika s} nfz / fO{ cf 5} g . / fHosf] gh/ df cfk| j... more zlgaf/ # h] 7 )&& nayapatrikaofficial @naya_patrika s} nfz / fO{ cf 5} g . / fHosf] gh/ df cfk| jf;L dlxnf sfdbf/ ;b[ Zo eP/ klg cb[ Zo 5g\ . klxnf] s' / f, / fHo;F u cfk| jf;L dlxnf sfdbf/ sf] jf: tljs ;+ Vof lgSof] { n ug{ ] ;+ oGq 5} g . >d : jLs[ lt lnP/ ;a} k| lqmof k" / f ug{ ] x¿sf] ljj/ 0f dfq} / fVg] vfnsf] ;+ oGq / fHo;F u 5 . / fHo cfkm} F n] dlxnf sfdbf/ nlIft k| ltalGwt gLlt / P] gsfg' g nfu" u/ ] sfn] pQm ;+ oGqsf] bfo/ fdf lglZrt sfdbf/ dfq} ;d] l6G5g\ . j} b] lzs / f] huf/ af] 8{ sf] tYof+ scg' ¿k uPsf] Ps bzs -@)^%÷^^ b] lv &%÷&^_ sf] cjlwdf s' n #* nfv (* xhf/ $ ;o &( hgf j} b] lzs / f] huf/ df uPsf 5g\ . h;dWo] ! nfv (& xhf/ * ;o & hgf dlxnf 5g\ . of] cfF s8f >d : jLs[ lt lng] x¿sf] dfq} xf] . ha ls )^* sf] hgu0fgfdf pgLx¿s} kl/ jf/ n] lbPsf] ;" rgfsf] cfwf/ df $* xhf/ ^ ;o %^ hgf dlxnf dWok" j{ sf b] zdf cfk| jf;L sfdbf/ sf ¿ksf uPsf] b] vfPsf] lyof] , h' g dWok" j{ sf cfk| jf;LdWo] sf] ^=& k| ltzt xf] . ;/ sf/ L k| lqmof gckgfO{ hfg] x¿sf] clws ;+ Vofdf dlxnfx¿ kg{ ] x' F bf k| jf;L >lds dlxnfx¿sf] jf: tljs ;+ Vof olsg ug{ ;lsGg . tf] lsPadf] lhdsf] sfg' gL k| lqmof k5\ ofP/ j} b] lzs / f] huf/ df hfg] x¿sf] n] vfhf] vf / ;+ / If0fsf] bfloTj dfq} / fHon] jxg ug{ ] u5{ . cfk| jf;L dlxnf sfdbf/ sf] xsdf / fHo gLltut / Jofjxfl/ s ¿kdf cg' bf/ 5 . ljleGg sf/ 0fn] dlxnfx¿ j} b] lzs / f] huf/ df hfg] qmd XjfQ} a9\ of] . t/ , To;nfO{ ;xh / ;sf/ fTds dfGg] dfgl;stf / rngsf] ljsf; Hofb} ;' : t 5 . dlxnfx¿n] lgaf{ w / ;' / lIft ¿kdf >d k| jf;df cfphfp ug{ ] cj: yf 5} g . / fHon] ;' / lIft, Jojl: yt / ;xh >d k| jf;sf] aGbf] a: t ug{ ' sf] ; §f ;' / Iffsf] axfgfdf dlxnfsf] j} b] lzs / f] huf/ dfly k| ltaGw nufpF b} cfPsf] 5 . ;' / Iffsf] gfddf l;lh{ t ;d: of clxn] !!) d' n' sdf g] kfnL gful/ sx¿ cfk| jf;L sfdbf/ sf] ¿kdf sfd ug{ hfg kfpF 5g\ . sfdsf nflu g] kfnLx¿ ljb] z hfg] rng k' / fgf] xf] . ;g\ !(*% df j} b] lzs / f] huf/ P] g lgdf{ 0f u/ ] / pQm k' / fgf] rngnfO{ / fHon] sfg' gL bfo/ fdf leoeofof] . g] kfnsf dlxnf klg lglZrt d' n' ssf >d ahf/ sf] >lds ag] . t/ , k' ?if;/ x h' g;' s} b] zdf dlxnf hfg gkfpg] lgif] wsf] bx| f] kvf{ n / fHon] v8f u¥of] . / fHosf] cg' dlt k| fKt d' n' sdf hfgsf nflu klg sf] xL k' ?if cleefjs -afa' , >Ldfg\ , bfh' -efO jf c¿ cfkmGt_sf] : jLs[ lt klxnf] ;t{ agfOof] . / fHon] cfkm\ gf] lgoGq0fsf] cnfjf kfl/ jfl/ s ta/ d} klg ln+ usf] cfwf/ df dlxnfsf] lxF 8\ 8' n / sfd ug{ ] clwsf/ If] qsf] lgwf{ / 0fstf{ k' ?ifnfO{ tf] Sof] . ;g\ !((* ;Dd of] ;t{ sf] clgjfo{ kfngf ul/ Psf] lyof] . 3/ ] n' lx+ ;f / anfTsf/ sf] l;sf/ ePkl5 ;g\ !((* df s' j] tdf 3/ ] n' sfd ug{ uPsL sfgL z] kf{ n] cfTdxTof ul/ g\ . To;j] nf ;/ sf/ sf] lj/ f] w eof] . To;} sf] ;Daf] wg: j¿k ;' / Iffsf] pkfo cjnDagsf] gfddf ;/ sf/ n] dlxnfnfO{ vf8L d' n' sdf hfg k| ltaGw nufof] . ;g\ @))# df pQm k| ltaGw cf+ lzs km' s' jf ul/ of] . cf} krfl/ s elgg] If] qdf sfd ug{ hfg kfpg] / 3/ fo;L sfdh: tf cgf} krfl/ s elgg] If] qdf sfd ug{ hfg gkfpg] agfOof] . ;g\ @))* df ag] sf] j} b] lzs / f] huf/ P] gn] ln+ usf] cfwf/ df s;} sf] / f] huf/ Lsf] clwsf/ xgg ug{ gkfOg] k| fjwfg t Nofof] , t/ ;g\ @))* d} dlxnfx¿nfO{ vf8L d' n' s hfg lgif] w ul/ of] . dlxnfx¿ sfd ug{ uPsf] 7fpF df ;d: of b] vf k/ ] df pQm d' n' sdf hfg dlxnfx¿nfO{ k| ltaGw nufpF b} uof] . dn] l;of hfg k| ltaGw u¥of] . ;g\ @))( df n] agfgdf g] kfnaf6 uPsf 3/ ] n' dlxnf sfdbf/ x¿n] cfTdxTof u/ ] sf] ;dfrf/ aflxl/ Pkl5 ToxfF hfg g] kfn ;/ sf/ n]
CNN, May 1, 2015
Living on the fault line that has produced the world's highest mountain ranges, the people of Nep... more Living on the fault line that has produced the world's highest mountain ranges, the people of Nepal knew there would be a major earthquake someday.
Yet last Saturday's heartbreaking losses still come as a devastating blow, from which Nepal will take years to recover. As the world pitches in to help with immediate relief, thoughts are also beginning to turn to long-term recovery. In the aftermath of the quake, Nepal's musical traditions can help buoy the resilience and spirit necessary to rebuild the country.
Fair Observer, Mar 2, 2014
Spiny Babbler Online Museum, 2005
Indian Theatre Journal
As performance reality television shows have become popular in Nepal, singers, musicians and danc... more As performance reality television shows have become popular in Nepal, singers, musicians and dancers from the various communist parties’ cultural groups have begun to take part in them and draw on them for artistic inspiration. Yet reality shows are also closely associated with neo-liberal capitalism, and these artists’ participation has thus been criticized by some on the political left. This article examines the resulting interaction of aesthetics and values when communist artists, reality show expectations and cultural criticism meet. I draw on twenty years’ engagement with Nepal’s music industry as a performer and ethnographer, and in-person and online fieldwork with communist cultural groups between 2012 and 2021. I focus on artists associated with the far-left party known officially as the Communist Party of Nepal and informally as Biplav’s CPN; a party that emerged from the former CPN (Maoist). Outlining points of articulation and conflict between the values of these Maoist a...
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 ... more This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. This Review is brought to you for free and open access by the DigitalCommons@Macalester College at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies by an authorized Recommended Citation
The Contemporary Pacific, 2013
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2017
Throughout the history of movement between country and city in the Nepali-speaking areas of the I... more Throughout the history of movement between country and city in the Nepali-speaking areas of the Indian subcontinent, musical links between cities and the rural hills have integrated emotional associations with rural hill life into the fabric of city life. Songs in the thematic genre of viraha – longing and the pain of separation – articulate lyrical and musical tropes that have come to characterise the experience of moving between hill villages, cities, and back again. This article explores over a century of Nepali-language viraha songs related to labour migration, arguing that as these songs take root in translocal publics crossing urban-rural divides, they contribute to an ruralisation of social and emotional life in the cities.
Music and Communism Outside the Communist Bloc, 2013
Nepal's twentieth-century tradition of leftist music, known as pragatisil git or progressive ... more Nepal's twentieth-century tradition of leftist music, known as pragatisil git or progressive song, developed musically during the 1960s and 1970s along with state-sponsored nationalist genres meant to serve as musical representations of Nepali identity. The differences were primarily in the lyrics: pragatisil git's leftist themes were deemed too incendiary for a regime that forbade political organization. Composers writing songs for the national radio were encouraged to produce love songs, deemed apolitical and therefore safe. At first glance, communist pragatisil git avoids themes of love, in stark contrast to mainstream folk and popular music. Yet, while themes of romance are indeed absent from most Nepali communist music, a closer look demonstrates a strong concern with other forms of love and sentiment. This chapter focuses upon the theme of class love, examining how it is imagined to be socially transformative, and how it has changed through different communist parties&...
Himalaya: The Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies, 2018
Himalaya: The Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies, 2018
This article examines the moral and material economy of "being a musician" (Neuman 1980) in Nepal... more This article examines the moral and material economy of "being a musician" (Neuman 1980) in Nepal's popular folk music industry, which includes the broad genre of lok gīt (folk song) and the more specific subgenre of lok dohori (folk duet song). Through ethnographic attention to a debate about what it means to be an artist, and how musicians can both make a living and earn prestige and honor, I argue that rather than one system of value and exchange dominating social and economic interactions in this music industry today, instead, multiple regimes of value shape artists' choices. I give examples of how musicians in this industry navigate these multiple regimes of value and prestige, and show how fluency in moving among them is increasingly important in making a living as a musician in Nepal's popular folk music world today.
China Review International, 2016
Himalaya: The Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies, 2005
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2018
2007, in the months after the ceasefire ending ten years of civil war between the state security ... more 2007, in the months after the ceasefire ending ten years of civil war between the state security forces and Maoist revolutionaries. In April 2006, the nineteen-day People's Movement against then-king Gyanendra's seizure of absolute power united democratic political parties and Maoists in a common cause. It paved the way for peace agreements and a tenuous sense of hope that Nepal could reinvent itself, rectifying past injustices of institutionalized class, caste, ethnic, gender, religious, and regional discrimination. This article aims to provide ethnographic insight into an early effort to construct commensurability among the formerly warring parties, and to open up a new discursive space in which to begin to imagine a "new Nepal." This early effort was the first-ever live dohorã 2 song competition on state
Asian Ethnicity
Migration has been a basic fact of Nepali life for centuries. Over the last thirty years, migrati... more Migration has been a basic fact of Nepali life for centuries. Over the last thirty years, migration from Nepal has increased exponentially, leading to many new diaspora communities across the world. In these diverse contexts, to what extent do Nepalis reproduce their culture and pass it on to subsequent generations? How much of diaspora life is a response to social and political concerns derived from the homeland? What aspects of Nepali life and culture change? In this volume twenty-one authors address these issues through eighteen detailed case studies that tackle issues of livelihood, identity and belonging, internal conflict, and religious practice, in the UK, the USA, India, Southeast Asia, the Gulf countries, and Fiji. Throughout the volume, we see how being Nepali outside Nepal enables new categories and new kinds of identity to emerge, whether as Nepali, Gorkhali, or as a member of a particular ethnic, regional, or religious group. The common theme of Global Nepalis is the exploration of continuity, change, and conflict as new practices and identities develop in Nepali diaspora life.
Oxford Scholarship Online
An ethnographic study of music, performance, migration, and circulation, this book examines how f... more An ethnographic study of music, performance, migration, and circulation, this book examines how forms of love and intimacy are linked to changing conceptions of political solidarity and forms of belonging, through the lens of Nepali dohori song. The book describes dohori: improvised, dialogic performed poetry that is sung, in which a witty repartee of exchanges is based on poetic couplets with a fixed rhyme scheme, often backed by instrumental music and accompanying dance, performed between men and women, with a primary focus on romantic love. The book tells the story of dohori’s relationship with changing ideas of Nepal as a nation-state, and how different concepts of national unity have incorporated marginality, in the intersectional arenas of caste, indigeneity, class, gender, and regional identity. In the aftermath of Nepal’s ten-year civil war, changing political realities, increased migration, and circulation of people, media, and practices are redefining concepts of appropria...
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 14746689 2012 706023, Sep 10, 2012
Ethnomusicology, 2010
E very evening in Kathmandu, a popular rooftop restaurant closes down, and the action moves downs... more E very evening in Kathmandu, a popular rooftop restaurant closes down, and the action moves downstairs to another restaurant, Lalitpur Rodhi Club, that offers musical performance. Here, the main attraction is dohori song:1 the exchange of flirtatious, improvised lyrical couplets ...
This is an ethnographic study of how gendered forms of intimacy are linked to changing conception... more This is an ethnographic study of how gendered forms of intimacy are linked to changing conceptions of the nation, through the lens of a folkloric popular music genre known as dohori song. With roots in the rural courtship traditions of various ethnic groups, dohori has become ...
![Research paper thumbnail of Convergence Culture in Rural Nepal [Poster]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/31590470/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](One form of anxiety regarding digital media has to do with their perceived greater ephemerality d... more One form of anxiety regarding digital media has to do with their perceived greater ephemerality due to the rapid pace of technological change, with the realisation that digital recordings' supposedly infinite reproducibility in fact lasts as long as the technology exists for those recordings to be reproduced. A separate discourse on digital media emphasises its increasingly participatory culture. These two discourses converge in attempts to deal with the problem of loss through attention not only to participation but also to performance. Some scholars have turned to performance studies to discuss how anxieties about media ephemerality may be re-framed by conceiving of digital recordings as part of, rather than schizophonically separated from, organic processes of transmitting embodied knowledge (cf. McGonigal 2003). Here the materiality of sound and its effects on listeners is paramount in the dialectic between archive (sound files) and repertoire (sound files in use) (Taylor 2003). Playing a recording can be understood as a performance, which itself functions as an "act of transfer, transmitting social knowledge, memory, and a sense of identity through reiterated...behavior" (Taylor 2003), and such acts of consumption may perhaps be better understood as acts of participation. Thus, these scholars argue, digital media contribute to broader processes of cultural transmission and continuity, across space and time. Further, such media performances increasingly involve more than one type of media, or multiple instances of re-mediation. This poster contributes to the discussion of consumption at this conference by providing an ethnographically grounded examination of participatory media culture in rural Nepal, in which digital media meets local forms of performance and habits of engaging with analog media. Using the perspective of "convergence culture" (Jenkins 2006) to complicate the relationships between production, consumption, reception, and participation, this poster examines what rural Nepalis, the primary demographic engaged with the popular folk music industry, do with digital media, and how it is situated within existing patterns of musical performance and listeners' engagement with other media forms. Rooted in decades of preservationist discourse in which music companies are seen as archivists and promoters of national musical creativity, Nepal's popular folk music industry is an ideal starting point from which to investigate the interfaces of media and performance, and how they can re-frame the anxieties surrounding the idea of ephemerality and loss in the digital age.
The term "cultural revolution" means two things in Nepal today: the historical period of China's ... more The term "cultural revolution" means two things in Nepal today: the historical period of China's Cultural Revolution, and the various Nepali programs for carrying out revolutionary aims through cultural means. These programs differ among the individuals and political parties who espouse them. While communists of Nepal's multiple communist parties often speak of revolutionary change, it is primarily the Maoist parties that self-consciously speak of cultural revolution. Current scholarship on Nepal's Maoist movement usually treats its ideology and strategy as radical breaks with established communist and mainstream nationalist doxa (cf. Lecomte-Tilouine 2009, 2013). Yet the idea of cultural transformation as a necessary component of revolution, which is the primary way in which Maoists and non-Maoists use the term cultural revolution today, has roots dating back to the formative period of Nepal's communist parties in the 1940s, and especially among the oppositional progressive movement that brought together communists, liberals, and the non-aligned from the 1960s-1990s. In the post-1990 era of economic and political liberalization on the one hand, and Maoist revolution and periodic returns to autocracy on the other, the term progressive, once mostly reserved for communists, is now being applied to all sorts of agendas that aim to create significant social change. In attempting to discover what counts as revolutionary or progressive, and for whom, one thing becomes clear: in Nepal today, to be considered a revolutionary or progressive artist increasingly requires publicly demonstrated congruence of one's individual actions with the message of one's art.
![Research paper thumbnail of Dialogic Songs for Intercultural Dialog? Towards Post-Multiculturalism in Post-Conflict Nepal [Poster]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/31292259/thumbnails/1.jpg)
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HIMALAYA, the Journal of the HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies Himalayan Studies, 2018
Journal of Contemporary Asia, Jan 8, 2014
Music and Letters, Aug 2013
Music and Letters 94(1), 2013
Ethnomusicology 57 (1), 2013
![Research paper thumbnail of Exchanges of song Migration, gender, and nation in Nepali dohori performance [PhD Dissertation]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/41564210/thumbnails/1.jpg)
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