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Colonialist, nationalist, and regionalist ideologies have profoundly influenced folk music and related musical practices among the Garhwali and Kumaoni of Uttarakhand. Stefan Fiol blends historical and ethnographic approaches to unlock these influences and explore a paradox: how the “folk” designation can alternately identify a universal stage of humanity, or denote alterity and subordination.

Association for Nepal and HImalayan Studies Jim Fisher Book Award (Honorable Mention)

Given the colonialist and imperialist foundations of the field of ethnomusicology, how do we move towards more equitable and honest forms of engagement in the face of pernicious and persistent inequities between the researcher and their interlocutors? Many agree that we need more collaborative and restorative models for producing scholarship, but these models can only be investigated if we continue to do the difficult work of self-examination in relationship to others in the field...

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Drumming, Value, and Patronage in a Himalayan Village Economy. In Labor, Livelihood and Creative Economies (Morcom and Raina, eds.), 2024 

Drumming evinces a paradox of value across South Asian ritual contexts. How can we reconcile the heightened value of drumming with the stigma of being a hereditary drummer? Given the importance of drumming to the proper functioning of society and the cosmos, how and why has the social status of the drummer eroded to the point that young people from hereditary drumming families regularly refuse to perform? Why is the Dalit drummer often (dis)regarded as a remnant of an earlier way of life?

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I define cultural poverty as the absence or reduction of the means to express culture; and culture, in turn, consists of the shared habits of thought, feeling, and action that bind individuals to social collectives. Any absence or reduction of the means to musical expression may be termed musical poverty, which is...

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The Baddī are a community of hereditary musicians and dancers in the central Himalayas who once performed a variety of spiritual and secular roles in courtly and village settings. Weaving together narratives of history and memory, this article examines the itinerant lifestyle, the musical practices and the simultaneously...

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These are songs of the Baddi, an itinerant community of performers from the Garhwal Himalayas in the state of Uttarakhand. This music is performed by husband and wife duos and includes a range of contexts such as festivals, weddings and fertility rituals...

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