Introduction: Musical Intersections, Embodiments, and Emplacements

Summary

The following ethnographic accounts of music and dance from Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australasia examine how performances of gender, place, and emotion intersect. Ethnomusicology and anthropology have long recognized the connections between these aspects of performance, yet they are seldom analyzed together. Most recent studies have examined music in relation to either gender, place, or emotion. Instead of addressing each field of inquiry as an individual lens through which to understand musical practices, our aim is to explore the ways in which the three elements overlap. Our volume proposes that the intersections of gender, place, and emotion generate an interplay of performative issues, rather than discrete, bounded areas of inquiry.

The studies presented here reveal how the gendered practices of music making are intimately shaped by performers' emotional engagements with place. In addition, because places feed into performers' imaginations, affecting gendered musical meanings and experiences, contributors to this volume show how these elements of performance—gender, place, and emotion—intertwine in a “relationship of circularity.” “Circularity” in this sense refers to a multilayered approach in which each element implicates the others in a coconstitutive relationship. The process is examined from different regions around the globe, as contributors address two key questions: How are aesthetic, emotional, and imagined relations between performers and places embodied musically? And in what ways is the performance of emotion gendered across quotidian, ritual, and staged events?