The Renaissance of Sikh Devotional Music Memory, Identity, Orthopraxy

Sikh Studies;Ethnography;Ethnomusicology;Sikh Devotional Music;Interdisciplinary;Religious Identity Formation;History (General);Humanities (General);Religious Studies;South Asian Languages and Cultures;Humanities;Asian Languages & Cultures

Khalsa, Nirinjan KaurBhogal, Balbinder Singh ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Sikh Studies;    Ethnography;    Ethnomusicology;    Sikh Devotional Music;    Interdisciplinary;    Religious Identity Formation;    History (General);    Humanities (General);    Religious Studies;    South Asian Languages and Cultures;    Humanities;    Asian Languages & Cultures;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/107325/nirinjan_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

This dissertation is an ethnographic study of the contemporary ;;renaissance” of traditional Gurbani Kirtan (Sikh devotional music), including its performative, pedagogic, and soteriological spheres. This investigation uncovers the ideological and discursive apparatuses underlying this revival, revealing that they contain reformist tendencies that parallel those of 19th-20th century (post)colonial era-reform, which aimed to create a nationally independent Sikh identity. It examines the juxtaposing agendas within the contemporary revival, between preserving Sikh musical memory and reforming Sikh musical identity, questioning notions of authenticity, authority, and orthopraxy.The Gurbani Kirtan renaissance began in the early 1990s with a realization that the traditional practices were approaching extinction. While some revivalists worked to preserve extant memory and practices, others perceived Gurbani Kirtan in need of systematic reform, so it could be institutionalized as a musical genre independent from Hindustani Sangeet.Problematically, the process of institutionalization has created orthopraxic prescriptions based on normative models, erasing the diversity of past operative practices, and replacing them with new histories.The divergent revivalist approaches taken to recover a near-lost Sikh musical identity have created much debate within the field, with competing narratives framed by various pedagogies, ideologies, and notions of authority and authenticity.To give voice to the diverse perspectives within the renaissance, this dissertation employs extensive interviews with memory bearers, reformists, musicians, scholars, students, and innovative diasporic musicians.It also engages with traditional pedagogic methodologies and employs musicological analysis of extant vintage compositions to understand their historical and aesthetic value, suggesting that the Gurbani Kirtan tradition is a dynamic living entity that resists the imposition of modern standards, and instead offers avenues for future creations.This dissertation raises issues of erasure and appropriation with the aim of recovering the heterogeneity of past operative practices from being subsumed by modern reformist agendas that homogenize Sikh identity into a normative standard. In questioning how Sikh musical knowledge has been propagated and authenticated since modernity, I propose a reassessment of what values and musical modes are indelible to the fabric of Gurbani Kirtan, what aspects are modern derivatives, and what aspects are negotiable as openings towards future scholarship, practices, and dialogue.