Post Colonial Distances

Release on 2020-10-27 | by Denis Crowdy

Implicit in that conference and in this anthology is the comparability of the two countries. Their ‘post-colonial’ status (if that is indeed an appropriate modifier in either case) has some points of similarity.

Author: Denis Crowdy
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 9781527561274
Category: Music
Page: 225
View: 932

Post Colonial Distances

This anthology emanated from a conference in St. John’s, Newfoundland, that brought together popular music scholars, folklorists and ethnomusicologists from Canada and Australia. Implicit in that conference and in this anthology is the comparability of the two countries. Their ‘post-colonial’ status (if that is indeed an appropriate modifier in either case) has some points of similarity. On the other hand, their ‘distance’ – from hegemonic centres, from colonial histories – is arguably more a matter of contrast than similarity. Canada and Australia are similar in various regards. Post-colonial in the sense that they are both former British colonies, they now each have more than a century of stature as nation states. By the beginning of the 21st century, they are each modest in size but rich in ethnocultural diversity. Nonetheless, each country has some skeletons in the closet where openness to difference, to indigenous and new immigrant groups are concerned. Both countries are similarly both experiencing rapid shifts in cultural makeup with the biggest population increases in Australia coming from China, India, and South Africa, and the biggest in Canada from Afro-Caribbean, South Asian countries, and China. The chapters in this anthology constitute an important comparative initiative. Perhaps the most obvious point of comparison is that both countries create commercial music in the shadow of the hegemonic US and British industries. As the authors demonstrate, both proximity (specifically Canada’s nearness to the US) and distance have advantages and disadvantages. As the third and fourth largest Anglophone music markets for popular music, they face similar issues relating to music management, performance markets, and production. A second relationship, as chapters in this anthology attest, is the significant movement between the two countries in a matrix of exchange and influence among musicians that has rarely been studied hitherto. Third, both countries invite comparison with regard to the popular music production of diverse social groups within their national populations. In particular, the tremendous growth of indigenous popular music has resulted in opportunities as well as challenges. Additionally, however, the strategies that different waves of immigrants have adopted to devise or localize popular music that was both competitive and meaningful to their own people as well as to a larger demographic bear comparison. The historical similarities and differences as well as the global positionality of each country in the early 21st century, then, invites comparison relating to musical practices, social organization, lyrics as they articulate social issues, career strategies, industry structures and listeners.

Language: en
Pages: 225

Post-Colonial Distances

Authors: Denis Crowdy, Bev Diamond, Daniel Downes

Categories: Music

Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-10-27 - Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Language: en
Pages: 266

Louder and Faster

Authors: Deborah Wong

Categories: Social Science

Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-09-10 - Publisher: University of California Press

A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. Louder and Faster is a cultural study of the phenomenon of Asian American taiko, the thundering, athletic drumming tradition that originated in Japan. Immersed in the taiko scene for twenty years, Deborah Wong has witnessed cultural and

Language: en
Pages: 288

Colonial and Post-Colonial Goan Literature in Portuguese

Authors: Paul Michael Melo e Castro

Categories: History

Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-02-15 - Publisher: University of Wales Press

This collection of essays brings together established scholars of Lusophone Goan literature from India, Brazil, Portugal and Great Britain. For the first time in English, this volume traces the key narrative works, authors and themes of this small but significant territory. Goa, a Portuguese colony between 1510 and 1961, was

Language: en
Pages: 286

Globalization

Authors: Shereen T. Ismael

Categories: Social Science

Type: BOOK - Published: 1999 - Publisher: Calgary : Detselig Enterprises

This book comprises a selection of papers from the proceedings of an International conference held under the auspices of the International Center for Contemporary Middle Eastern Studies at the Eastern Mediterranean University in 1998.