Jähnichen, Gisa (2021). Minorities’ Music and Dance on the Vietnamese Stage. Music and Marginalisation – Beyond the Minority-Majority Paradigm. Edited by Ursula Hemetek, Inna Naroditskaya, Terada Yoshitaka. Senri Ethnological Studies 105. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology, 125-144. (original) (raw)

In 2010, the international symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Music and Minorities was held in Hanoi, Vietnam, where the participants enjoyed rich cultural social programmes. Music performed onstage offered a glimpse at diverse minority cultures and the pearls of Vietnamese traditions. As temporary visitors, even with some anthropological and sociological understanding, many could not recognise the degree of ‘authenticity’ being presented. Unfamiliar with the background, most just sat back and enjoyed the colourful programme. This chapter is a continuation of the paper that was presented during the symposium (Jähnichen 2012). It intensifies the theoretical framework connected to observation principles and the many efforts undertaken in order to rescue and preserve Vietnam’s ethnic minorities’ musical identities (To Ngoc Thanh 2010). Through a critical review of ethnomusicological approaches, as described for the last decade of the twentieth century (Nettl 2008), further insights into the social dynamics that reflect the strong impact of an expected ‘globality’ (Yergin and Stanislaw 2002) can be made. This study is based on personal observation and audio-visual archive materials that were collected by the author between 1988 and 2014 in Vietnam.