Non-Western Popular Music

This collection provides readers with a diverse and contemporary overview of research in the field. Drawing upon scholarly writing from a range of disciplines and approaches, it provides case studies from a wide range of 'non Western' musical contexts. In so doing the volume attends to the central themes that have emerged in this area of popular music studies; cultural politics, identity and the role of technology. This collection does not seek to establish a new theoretical paradigm, but being primarily aimed at researchers and students, offers as comprehensive a view of the research that has been carried out over the last few decades as possible, given the global scope of the subject. Inevitably, the experience of globalisation itself runs through many of the contributions, not only because musicians find themselves part of an immense flow of international culture, technology and finance, but also because Western scholarship can also be considered an aspect of such a flow. The articles selected for the volume take different disciplinary approaches; many are close ethnographic descriptions of musical practices whilst others take a more historical view of a musical 'scene' or even a single musician. Some essays consider the effects of emerging technologies upon the production, dissemination and consumption of music, whilst the political context is central to other authors. The collection as a whole serves as a resource for those who wish to be better acquainted with the diversity of research that has been carried out into non-western pop, whilst also highlighting the broader themes that have, so far, shaped academic approaches to the subject.

Tony Langlois is Lecturer at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland