​2016 International Conference on
Sounds, Images, and Texts on China's Periphery

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Rena EKREM (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)
Topic: Space of Their Own: “Qatar Chay” Activity of Uyghur Women in Urumqi, Xinjiang
 

This research is about a popular gathering activity called “qatar chay” as practiced among Uyghur women in Urumqi, the provincial capital of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. “Qatar Chay” is a special form of rotating saving and credit association (ROSCA) in Uyghur society. It plays an important role as a means of micro finance for Uyghur women. It also provides a field for Uyghur women to build and maintain their social network, to exchange information, and to perform complex identity and power. This research aims to discuss under what social, historical and political circumstances “qatar chay” emerged and spread quickly to bocame an important part of Uyghur women’s life. The change of the social space of Uyghur women will be discussed as well.

 

 

 

 

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Samuel HORLOR (Durham University)
Topic: Mainstream on the Margins: Synergy Between Periphery and Centre in Wuhan’s Street Music
 
In various public spaces in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province, groups of amateur musicians entertain large audiences of local residents with daily shows involving a canon of classic popular songs. Personal relationships develop between performers and regular audience members, and these connections contribute to a key feature of the shows, the substantial cash tips given by spectators to singers. The events can be understood as peripheral from several perspectives. Most notably, extensive field research has tracked city authorities’ efforts to move organisers from city-centre performance locations towards geographically and socially marginal spaces. Thus, study of the events adds to scholarship surrounding musical activity that is isolated from mainstream public life and unrecognised by the sphere of formally-organised music (Finnegan 1989). At the same time, Wuhan’s street music is distant from the common generic and geographical focal points of Chinese music scholarship. Yet influences closer to orthodox musical, social, geographical and political centre grounds form the foundations for interpersonal and financial exchanges essential to events’ social meaning. Organisers and performers make efforts to spread messages of broad social inclusivity, and anchor themselves in the most universally appealing mainstream musical genres and repertories, as well as in discourses and modes of expression that are widely conventional. They also relate to politically-minded authorities through complex compromises rather than clear subversion. Therefore,in this paper I use these performances to focus attention on the relationship between marginality and centrality, showing how the two phenomena are linked in constituting real-world performance practices. Rather than relying on dualistic understandings of the sounds on China’s margins, I argue that it is most useful to consider how core and periphery can shape each other.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Andrew Xiaoshi WEI (Indiana University)
Topic: Ghulja Music in Olturush: The Archives of Bextiyar Hebibulla

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In this presentation, I will speak about the visual archives of Bextiyar Hebibulla, an archivist at The Radio System of Ili Prefecture, Xinjiang. During 1990s and 2000s, Bextiyar produced a number of tapes covering the musical performances of Nurmuhemmet Tursun, Sanubar Tursun, Sattar Dawut, Weli Dawut, Yalqun Yaqup, and many others. I acquired Bextiyar’s materials upon the projects conducted by Tash Music & Archives, the private sector established by myself. Having conducted a series of interviews with the archivists (Bextiyar and his colleagues) , as well as the performers that appeared in these video clips, I will give an overview of the motivations, scopes, emphases, and repertoires of the archive. Meanwhile, I will analyse the settings and occasions of these performances, mainly the type of “olturush / gathering” that combines other types of entertainment such as “chaqchaq / joke telling”. Referring to the social memory theories and to past archival practices in the field of ethnomusicology, I claim that it is these settings that have attached specific and particular meanings to the music as performed and documented. 

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Matthew A. WERSTLER (Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities, Baise, Guangxi)
Topic: From Village to the City: Folk Song and Changing Landscapes in Baise City

Urbanization has influenced many aspects of city and village life. As employment and educational opportunities have become more available in the city, many people from villages have found their way moving to the city for these opportunities. On any given day, various forms of artistic expressions can be seen, heard, and experienced at the ‘People Forest Park’ in Youjiang District of Baise, Guangxi. The change can not only be seen by the presence of the folk singers but it can also be heard through the recordings.

Baise prefecture is home to many who identify as Zhuang, the largest minority in China. The shan’ge tradition is rich amongst Zhuang culture even more so in the village life. Despite the change of location, Zhuang migrants continue to practice and experience shan’ge in a changing environment. The local park that may be bustling with children activities, the local zoo, and other forms of entertainment; it is now the natural hub that preserves and sustains their folk songs. This is not a matter of the often discussed ‘original ecology folk song’ but rather a changing landscape that is now part of the new conversation.

In this paper, I consider the relationship of geography, place, and soundscape in relation to folk singing in the city vis-à-vis the village. As people have moved from villages and towns to the city, song frames from different areas of the Baise Prefecture can be heard in the park. Over a decade ago, Zhuang shan’ge was not part of soundscape of the city, today many types of shan’ge melodies can be experienced.