Singing Across Divides: Music and Intimate Politics in NepalOxford University Press, 2017 M09 29 - 288 pages An ethnographic study of music, performance, migration, and circulation, Singing Across Divides 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 singing, 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 nationalist concepts of unity have incorporated marginality, in the intersectional arenas of caste, indigeneity, class, gender, and regional identity. Dohori gets at the heart of tensions around ethnic, caste, and gender difference, as it promotes potentially destabilizing musical and poetic interactions, love, sex, and marriage across these social divides. 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 appropriate intimate relationships and their associated systems of exchange. Through multi-sited ethnography of performances, media production, circulation, reception, and the daily lives of performers and fans in Nepal and the UK, Singing Across Divides examines how people use dohori to challenge (and uphold) social categories, while also creating affective solidarities. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Legacies of Panchayat Musical Nationalism | 29 |
Festival Dohori in a Hill Village | 54 |
3 Songs with Consequences? Songfests and Binding Dohori Contests in the Rural Hills | 72 |
4 Sounding and Staging Village Nepal | 105 |
5 Professional Dohori and Economies of Honor | 140 |
6 Love Solidarity and Sociopolitical Change | 174 |
7 Violence Storytelling and WorldMaking in Song | 203 |
Conclusion | 242 |
249 | |
Discography | 267 |
271 | |
Other editions - View all
Singing Across Divides: Music and Intimate Politics in Nepal Anna Marie Stirr No preview available - 2017 |
Common terms and phrases
ādhunik album artists associated audience Badri Besisahar bhākā Bima binding dohori contests Cassette caste and ethnic central-western hills chha context couplets cultural Dalit dance Dasāin deuḍā Dhaulagiri dohori competitions dohori field dohori performers dohori restaurants dohori singer dohori songs dukha exchanges expression female festival gender genres girls Gurkha Gurung Harish high-caste Hindu Hindu honor idea improvised interaction intimacy intimate politics janajāti ethnic groups jhyāure Kathmandu Komal Kumar Lalitpur Lamjung live lok dohori lok gīt mādal Magar māita male Manju Maoists marriage masculine Maya Maya’s music industry music videos musicians natal home Nepali language norms older brother Panchayat People’s poetic Pokhara Prajapati Prajapati Parajuli professional dohori Radio Nepal recorded refrain regional relationships restaurant performers ritual rodhi Rodhi Club rural Sankhuwasabha sexual Shah singers singing social songfest space Srijana story studio styles sung Tamang Tanahun Thapa tion traditions urban village voice western hills woman women