Past events
Sonifying National Independence Ideology: The Politics of Popular Music in Uzbek
- Venue: CLB537, Fifth floor, Claremont Bridge
- Start: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 16:30:00 GMT
- End: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 18:30:00 GMT
Sonifying National Independence Ideology: The Politics of Popular Music in Uzbekistan
ABOUT THE TALK
Uzbekistan is an exception from the seemingly universal rule that new nation states choose particularly old traditions as musical emblems. By selecting estrada (pop music) as the sound of the nation, it has made one of the youngest additions to the repertoire of genres the country’s musical ambassador. Various state institutions have been entrusted with estrada’s development and control, and the creation of so-called milliy estrada (national estrada) as sonic incarnation of national independence ideology is high on the agenda of musical and educational policies.
The choice of estrada as musical signet is not only unusual, it seems paradoxical – because Uzbekistan is no exception from the widespread tendency among post-socialist successor states to negate their Soviet history. So why has a country that once even banned the word ‘Soviet’ from public discourse chosen to be represented musically by a genre that indisputably is a heritage of the Soviet era? How far are musical policies successful in solving this contradiction and imbuing estrada with the nimbus of something new?
These questions I will explore in my paper. Based on extensive fieldwork in Tashkent, the presentation will be framed by a critical reflexion of the subversion bias, which has so far dominated research on socialist and post-socialist popular music in Western music studies. My aim is to come to an understanding of the relation between authoritarian policies and popular music that transcends the common binary tropes of repression versus resistance, affirmation versus opposition, and the moralistic baggage they carry with them.
This is a joint event held in association with the Sociology Research Seminar Series