| This dissertation is about the music of the Uyghur, a Central Asian Muslim Turkic group of around nine million whose homeland, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, happens now to fall within the northwest borders of the People's Republic of China, of which they have become often reluctant citizens. Issues of ethno-national identification, cultural representation, the politics of multiculturalism, and cosmopolitan belonging are often intimately linked to music making in the various traditional and modern, amateur and professional, private and commercialized contexts.; Following a one-year period of ethnographic research in Xinjiang over 2004-2005, I attempt to explicate the intertwined relationship between music and the myriad of such complex socio-cultural processes in Uyghur societies. I focus my research in the provincial capital Urumchi, and investigate Uyghur traditional and popular music as part of a broader process of shifting identification and relations. I demonstrate how music provides a means by which contemporary Uyghur subjectivities are constructed and transformed. In particular, I look at how the modern creation of a collectivized pan-Uyghur identity gains currency in the state-sponsored canonization of the Twelve Muqam, the most venerated classical Uyghur musical tradition and artistic creation. In addition, drawing on examples from the traditional music revival, reform of musical instruments, and professionalized performance practices of the various performing groups in Urumchi, such as the Muqam Ensemble and the Song-and-Dance Troupe, I examine issues of musical modernization and show how music is seen as a privileged vehicle for the Uyghur in their narration of a glorious past, lamentable present, and unpromising future.; Investigation of traditional muqam is indispensably supplemented by a detailed examination of the vibrant Uyghur music industry and the commercialized musical genres that extend from traditional folk to modern rock, in a deliberate attempt to look at how popular musical forms allow for the emergence of the consciousness of cosmopolitan belonging. In conclusion, I seek to view the Uyghur as cosmopolitan minorities, whose efforts in striving to become cosmopolitan citizens of the world are not entirely free of the ubiquitous and inevitable presence of the hegemonic state in mediating such processes. |
