ABSTRACT
One of the more enduring challenges encountered in the writing of this book has been that of maintaining narrative coherence through the linear time-space of cumulative text. Attempts to resolve this difficulty can be found in my efforts at cross-referencing theoretical and ethnographic overlaps through different themes of the five previous chapters. However, within this challenge also lies the crux of my argument: that Amis song is a multi-dimensional phenomenon which cannot be conceived of in linear terms. It does not exist in separate, disconnected categories – whether as singalong ladhiw sessions in a village (Chapter Two), a Kiloma’an festival (Chapter Three), part of the Christian liturgy (Chapter Three); performing groups (Chapter Four) or the popular music world (Chapter Five). Amis song is an ecosystem whose components are inter-dependent and held together in a web of ideas, histories, practices, contexts, choices and economies.
