ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the experiences and reflexive identity positionings appropriated by and attributed to an Indian ethnomusicologist, me, currently researching among the Tibetan refugee community in and around Dharamsala, India. My work in this context examines the role of music(s) in the articulation of identity and place-making and, in particular, the making and performing of identities through cultural practices in exile settings. The performance of identities is key, because Tibetan identities are no more homogenous or fixed-in-time than ‘Indian’ identities – or any other too-large, broad-brush-strokes, nation-based identity label. Indeed, in all culturework, including ethnomusicology, there is a risk of ossification of cultural practices: in a bid to preserve ‘culture’, researchers risk creating museum-pieces that cease to be live practices and, at best, represent what was rather than what is . In addition, of course, there is the insider/outsider question. I am not Tibetan, and not trying to hold onto my culture amidst the tumult of an enormous, complex country that is not my own. How am I to navigate this reflexivity as I work from/in the margins? I am also a practising musician. This brings me in – an insider identity – and sets me apart all over again. This chapter is therefore a meditation on the identity work and place-making that both my participants and I do, in different ways, through the medium of music/s. I discuss the interplay of ‘self’ and ‘other’ in the research setting, and the positionality of a researcher who is, in turns, both insider and outsider. While cultural practices like music can tell researchers a lot about the society that creates them, it is also necessary to reflect on how the researcher’s own voice may harmonise – or not – with the voices of ‘the researched’.
