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Musical Minorities is the first English-language monograph on the performing arts of an ethnic minority in Vietnam. Living primarily in the northern mountains, the Hmong have strategically maintained their cultural distance from foreign invaders and encroaching state agencies for almost two centuries. They use cultural heritage as a means of maintaining a resilient community identity, one which is malleable to their everyday needs and to negotiations among
themselves and with others in the vicinity. Case studies of revolutionary songs, countercultural rock, traditional vocal and instrumental styles, tourist shows, animist and Christian rituals, and light pop from
the diaspora illustrate the diversity of their creative outputs. This groundbreaking study reveals how performing arts shape understandings of ethnicity and nationality in contemporary Vietnam. Based on three years of fieldwork, Lonán Ó Briain traces the circulation of organized sounds that contribute to the adaptive capacities of this diverse social group. In an original investigation of the sonic materialization of social identity, the book outlines the
full multiplicity of Hmong music-making through a fascinating account of music, minorities, and the state in a post-socialist context.
Musical Minorities is the first English-language monograph on the performing arts of an ethnic minority in Vietnam. Living primarily in the northern mountains, the Hmong have strategically maintained their cultural distance from foreign invaders and encroaching state agencies for almost two centuries. They use cultural heritage as a means of maintaining a resilient community identity, one which is malleable to their everyday needs and to negotiations among
themselves and with others in the vicinity. Case studies of revolutionary songs, countercultural rock, traditional vocal and instrumental styles, tourist shows, animist and Christian rituals, and light pop from
the diaspora illustrate the diversity of their creative outputs. This groundbreaking study reveals how performing arts shape understandings of ethnicity and nationality in contemporary Vietnam. Based on three years of fieldwork, Lonán Ó Briain traces the circulation of organized sounds that contribute to the adaptive capacities of this diverse social group. In an original investigation of the sonic materialization of social identity, the book outlines the
full multiplicity of Hmong music-making through a fascinating account of music, minorities, and the state in a post-socialist context.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Notes on Language
List of Illustrations
About the Companion Website
Introduction
Chapter 1 On Becoming Vietnamese
Chapter 2 Hybridity and the Other in Modern National Music
Chapter 3 Hmong Traditional Music and Folklore
Chapter 4 Cultural Tourism in Northwestern Vietnam
Chapter 5 From Animism to Christianity
Chapter 6 Community Reformation in the Diaspora
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Glossary
Index
Lonán Ó Briain is Assistant Professor and Director of Postgraduate Studies in Music at the University of Nottingham. Previously, he taught at the University of Birmingham and the University of Sheffield. He currently serves as reviews editor for Ethnomusicology Forum and chair of the ICTM Ireland.
"Lonán Ó Briain has done his homework meticulously.... [This]
monograph is written in a clear prose that avoids arcane semantics.
It offers a perceptive, heart-felt, and accurate analysis of the
persistence of un-normalized thoughts and practices by people under
strong state and market domination.... Very few such deep-rooted
studies are being conducted, let alone published, on these peoples
and places, making this book a must-read to anyone
caring about the richness of marginal cultures and their power of
resilience." -- Asian Ethnicity
"Ó Briain offers a work of great intellectual integrity and
transparency, based on empirical work illustrated by case studies,
discussing the research of other scholars and presenting his own
interpretations based on his personal experience and his
informants' perceptions. The numerous case studies, discussions of
the states of the art, and the described musical analyses make the
book accessible to a larger audience, from the ethnologist working
in the
area to others willing to learn more about Hmong and related
musical cultures in Southeast Asia." -- Asian Music
"This book is a fascinating, wide-ranging and deeply intriguing
account of Hmong musical and cultural life in northern Vietnam in
the early years of this century. It is the product of very careful
and thoughtful scholarship, sensitive fieldwork, and musical
acuity. Congratulations are due to Ó Briain for producing such a
valuable addition to our knowledge about the sonic world of the
Hmong in northern Vietnam." -- Hmong Studies Journal
"This is an important ethnographic contribution regarding the
performing arts of the Southeast Asian Massif and its upland ethnic
minority residents. Focusing on the music-making of an ethnic
minority group in Vietnam, and based on three years of meticulous
fieldwork DL the permissions for which are challenging to acquire,
especially for the northern borderlands where this book is based DL
Lonán Ó Briain is to be commended for this carefully
documented account." -- SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in
Southeast Asia
"Musical Minorities remains a highly commendable ethnomusicological
study with important ramifications for ethnic relations, tourism
economies and the politics of representation in Vietnam and beyond.
More than that, this book provides a model for those wishing to
conduct interdisciplinary research on the performing arts of
marginalised groups." -- NewBooks.Asia
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