All the way from … authenticity and distance in world music production

Abstract

2 All the way from… authenticity and distance in world music production Abstract World music and the narratives it produces are at the very centre of a formerly transnational production and consumption process. However, the shortened distance between the sites of production and consumption of this good, brought on by migration and greater participation, has created a dilemma for the UKbased artists who perform it: how to maintain authenticity without the added value of 'distance'. Therefore, the aim of this article is to examine the ways in which musicians and other participants attempt to overcome this problem and in doing so (re)-construct particular aspects of their identity. Rather than being just another critique on authenticity, this paper uses distance as an organising concept in understanding the challenges facing world music production in the UK.

Mapping the cultural elements that support and inhibit music teachers’ sociomusical identities in Chile

“…According to Harnish (2005) and Skinner (2015), sociomusical identities are apparent when traditional music is preserved, adapted, and renewed using contemporary elements. In other words, sociomusical identities involve a syncretism based on postethnicity because local traditions and foreign cultural elements are reciprocally intertwined (Casas-Mas, 2018;Moore, 2016;Van Klyton, 2014), producing new types of transcultural identity (Steingress, 2004). For example, new cultural movements have emerged in local communities from the mixing of Altiplano rhythms with electric sounds, and Insular music with digital sounds.…”

“…Sociomusical capital is understood as a subtype of sociocultural capital (Bernal et al, 2017; Bourdieu, 1986) such that it is distributed within an immanent social structure, supporting or inhibiting sociomusical mobilization (Fuhrmann, 2011; Hennion, 2016). Social life thus determines the strengthening or slackening of an individual’s sociomusical identity (Angel-Alvarado, 2020), continually negotiating it in a never-ending cycle across the lifespan (Ozer et al, 2017; Van Klyton, 2014). Sociomusical identities determine the social positions of individuals based on behaviors displayed publicly (Kippen, 2002; Skinner, 2015) and “things people know but never need to explain” (Weidman, 2012, p. 230).…”

Space and place in world music production

“…van Klyton (2014) argues that the reduction in distance between the spaces of production and consumption necessitates that new forms of symbolic difference, such as venues, play an ever increasing role in this music's authentication. Hence, the spaces themselves create value above the production activity (Ley, 1982, p. 220).…”

The Sound of Home: Tuareg Women’s Tendé Drumming in France and Belgium

“…The "Sahara" meanwhile offers concert-goers and other world music stakeholders a way to recognize Tuareg musicians as distant, pure musical examples of a little-known world (van Klyton, 2016). Furthermore, the moniker of "desert blues" is perhaps a perfect example of Timothy Taylor's argument that World Music producers are increasingly demanding that musicians "from far away" incorporate "recognizable" (read western) sounds into their music (Taylor, 2007).…”