[Anthropgrad] Anthropology seminar Wednesday 13 August

[Melinda Hinkson]

Anthropology Seminar, 9.30 am Wednesday 13 August, Coombs Seminar Room A

Jane M. Ferguson, Asian Studies

*Rocking in Shanland: Burmese Popular Music and Ethnographies of
Borderlands Bands*

Although Burma has the dubious distinction of possessing some of the
longest-running internal conflicts in modern history, one often
overlooked aspect is the role of popular culture and its consumption
within these struggles. Although it might seem to be an anomaly, even
the most adamant of ethnic Shan separatists can, and often do, have
great affinity for Burmese popular music. In her ethnography on
television viewing practices in India, the anthropologist Purnima
Mankekar argues that viewer's semiotic skills are shaped by their
positions along multiple axes of power. This situation in Burma begs
similar questions. Based on over two years' ethnographic fieldwork
amongst a community of Shan insurgents and their affiliates, this paper
will examine the ways in which a key genre of Burmese popular music,
/copy thachin/ is interpreted, played, and ultimately re-signified by
politicized Shan amateur musicians in a rock band at the Thai-Burma
border. Limited fieldwork carried out in Yangon amongst Burmese
songwriters will flesh out the history and structure of the Burmese
popular music industry. Finally, I will demonstrate that borderland
zones constitute important generative spaces for certain kinds of
popular culture practice, especially when these practices can, and often
do, produce contentious political consequences.

All welcome.
____________________________________
Melinda Hinkson
School of Archaeology & Anthropology
A.D. Hope Building
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200

T: +61 2 6125 8246
F: +61 2 6125 2711
W: http://arts.anu.edu.au/AandA/

Information about the Master of Visual Culture Research
is available at: http://rsh.anu.edu.au/vcr.php