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Music and digital media across the lao diaspora
Abstract
Since the late 1990s a transnational Lao music industry, driven by the explosion of digital media technologies, has emerged across the communities of the Lao diaspora. These migrant Lao communities, which are dispersed across, and within, the United States of America, Australia, France and Canada, are undergoing internal changes as their younger, bi-cultural, generations reach adulthood. Using Lao music and its associated technoculture as a focal point, this article explores some of the ways Lao identity is being reconfigured and reconstructed as young migrant Lao come to terms with their cross-cultural status.
... This finding is consistent with our earlier study [11] wherein characteristics of lam represented by Lao people's oral tradition promoted positive reactions from the audience. According to Chapman [23,24], lam is construed as a metaphor for Lao-ness and is connected to the Lao identity. Therefore, a stimulation using lam made the participants conscious of their cultural identity and impelled their desire to preserve their culture. ...
Background: Socio-economic development has led to rapid changes in young people's lifestyle and sexual behaviour in Lao PDR. HIV/AIDS education provided at school is not sufficient; therefore, developing effective educational methods is necessary. The purpose of this study was to develop an Entertainment-Education Music Video using 'Lam', Lao traditional folk song (EEMVL) and evaluate its effectiveness.
Methods: Experimental study was conducted at a factory in southern part of Laos. Factory workers received HIV/ AIDS education by watching EEMVL. Fifty one female factory workers were completed semi structured questionnaires at pre and post intervention, and at a two-week follow-up. The questionnaire was included items about knowledge and awareness of HIV/AIDS, self-efficacy of condom use, intention of condom use, positive and negative attitude to people living with HIV/AIDS.
Results: The results showed increased self-efficacy of condom use (p<0.001), reduced negative attitude towards people living with HIV/AIDS (p=0.003) and improved communication on HIV/AIDS information among factory workers (p<0.001) from pre intervention to two-week follow-up. Intention of condom use was increased from pre to post (p=0.017), however, decreased at the two-week follow-up (p=0.02). This decreased intention was due to the participant's understanding of the importance of gaining the skills to protect oneself from HIV infection, and realizing that condoms cannot give 100% protection against HIV infection. Moreover, the participants expressed their desire to preserve Lao culture against HIV/AIDS and to fulfill their responsibility as Lao nationals.
Conclusion: These results suggested that the social modeling behaviour demonstrated in the EEMVL led the audience to improve their health literacy on HIV/AIDS prevention and stimulated interpersonal communication among the participants.
... (1997, p. 207). Compared to the extensive studies on the socioeconomic and political aspects of the Internet in Asia, scholarly attention on the ethnomusicological aspects is only recently emerging from research on Asian-based diaspora and ethnic minorities communities (Chapman, 2004;Murthy, 2010) and alternative music genres (Chu, 2011) as well as politically subversive podcasts (Tan, 2011). Moving onto the mainstream, as a global internet sensation registering more than a billion views on Youtube several months after it was uploaded, South Korean rapper PSY's Gangnam Style highlights the significance of the social media for the Korean popular music industry (Kim & Lee, 2012). ...
... Musically, the lam is identified with the sound and the rhythm created by the molam and traditional instruments, especially the kheen. It has been reported that the sound of singing is construed as a metaphor for Lao-ness and sound of the kheen invokes feelings and emotions connected to the Lao identity (Chapman, 2004(Chapman, , 2005. Musically, the lam expresses the identity of the Lao people, which may lead to the strong emotional involvement of the participants. ...
In the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Laos), health education is clearly a core aspect of the health service and is vital
in improving people's lives through good health. However, there are many obstacles to conducting effective health education.
The development of effective educational media is one solution to these problems. In Laos, traditional folk songs (lam) are preserved as part of the local communication media, and recently this communication medium has been used for health
education. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of educational media using lam. For this purpose, we conducted focus group discussions with 48 participants. The reactions of the participants towards a
lam, developed for preventing HIV/AIDS, were analysed using the KJ (Kawakita Jiro) method. The analysis showed there were eight
areas of concern: (1) interest in a lam talking about HIV/AIDS; (2) knowledge and perception related to HIV infection routes; (3) expressing a willingness for preventing
HIV/AIDS; (4) togetherness with people living with HIV/AIDS; (5) HIV/AIDS education for children; (6) improving educational
methods; (7) characteristics and effectiveness of the lam and (8) song preferences. The reactions of the participants, such as gaining knowledge and expressing individual attitudes
and community actions for preventing HIV/AIDS, were promoted by the characteristics and effectiveness of the lam such as oral tradition, artistry and cultural values. In particular, the oral tradition represented by lam is useful for the Lao people in memorizing and communicating information.
This chapter examines a tension at the heart of the Australian streaming industry between, on the one hand, a rapid increase in subscribers to international (i.e. Netflix) and local (i.e. Stan) platforms, and on the other, a relative lack of original Australian content produced for these services. These tensions are typified by the use of music: specifically, the reliance on non-local popular song complicates the distinction between supposedly regional and international productions, and this has implications for both the local reception of a series and the transnational perception of Australian identity. By examining two of the first original Australian streaming productions, Tidelands (Netflix, 2018) and Wolf Creek (Stan, 2016–2017), this chapter argues that the significant uses of non-Australian popular music fulfil an important narrative function in each series, relating to how they construct an opposition between notions of ‘home’ and its absence. These issues speak to wider themes concerning the musical representation of Australian national identity in streaming media.KeywordsAustraliaStreamingSoundMusicLocalisationProductionScreen Culture
Around the globe, people leave their homes to better themselves, to satisfy needs, and to care for their families. They also migrate to escape undesirable conditions, ranging from a lack of economic opportunities to violent conflicts at home or in the community. Most studies of migration have analyzed the topic at either the macro level of national and global economic and political forces, or the micro level of the psychology of individual migrants. Few studies have examined the "culture of migration"-that is, the cultural beliefs and social patterns that influence people to move.Cultures of Migration combines anthropological and geographical sensibilities, as well as sociological and economic models, to explore the household-level decision-making process that prompts migration. The authors draw their examples not only from their previous studies of Mexican Oaxacans and Turkish Kurds but also from migrants from Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific, and many parts of Asia. They examine social, economic, and political factors that can induce a household to decide to send members abroad, along with the cultural beliefs and traditions that can limit migration. The authors look at both transnational and internal migrations, and at shorter- and longer-term stays in the receiving location. They also consider the effect that migration has on those who remain behind. The authors' "culture of migration" model adds an important new dimension to our understanding of the cultural beliefs and social patterns associated with migration and will help specialists better respond to increasing human mobility. Copyright
I am at a weekend gathering at a Lao household in Campbelltown, on the very edge of Sydney. We are watching the rugby league Grand Final on a TV set that has been dragged outside so we can see it as we eat ox tongue straight off the barbecue. We are also eating laab leuad, a salad of finely chopped grilled duck mixed with lemongrass, galangal, chilli, fresh herbs, and pungent Lao fermented fish sauce, all served on a bed of jellied duck blood. Three of the young women at the party have recently arrived from Laos as the fiancées and brides of some of the men present. They speak no English, and we chat in a mixture of Lao and Vietnamese. "Bun" and "Got" have made a bet on the outcome of the match. Bun is backing Brisbane and Got, Melbourne. The wager is seven live ducks, to be bought at a local farm, slaughtered, plucked, and made into laab by the loser for all of us to enjoy next weekend. Every time Brisbane scores a try, Bun moonwalks across the TV screen flapping his arms like duck wings while Got curses. I ask Jean the Lao Australian social worker if he thinks the Lao community is cosmopolitan. He makes a motion with his hands like he's lifting a small box from one desk and putting it down on another, and says it's like they were lifted out of Laos and placed down here, intact.
This article seeks to demonstrate how various overlapping claims made by politicians, film producers and academics regarding diasporic audiences have constructed a particular model of cultural transmission emerging from a globalised mediasphere. Taking the case of popular Indian films and their global circulation, this article goes on to challenge the dominant ethnocultural explanations of popular culture and its circulation. Following a consideration of the empirical and epistemological faultlines arising from that paradigm, it is claimed that the tidy equation of media dispersal with migrant ethnicities is not only problematic in this specific case, but also that it provides for misleading conclusions about the relationship between cultural identity and media consumption. On reflection, it is argued that the epistemological foundation of global audience studies must provide for a greater recognition of the subjective and demographic diversity of audiences as well as the inherent hybridity and multiplication of media sources in everyday experience.
This paper looks at the tension between official multiculturalism, understood as a nation-building project that seeks to incorporate migrants into a unified national community even while recognising and fostering their difference, and the extra-national identifications, connections and practices that characterise really existing or everyday multiculturalism in Australia. This tension will be explored by way of the experiences of Vietnamese, Lao, Cambodian, Turkish and Burmese Mon communities in Sydney and Canberra. It argues that the ‘new’ multicultural subjects dwell between assimilation and transnationalism in a way that challenges our ability to theorise them, and the multicultural nation-state's capacity to recognise and engage them. In future research on migration in Australia, we will need to continue to take cognisance of the established nature of migrants' claims to national belonging and the reality of their local cultural becomings and hybridities; and at the same time take account of the lithe and multi-scalar nature of their identifications beyond the boundaries of proximate community, locality and nation.
Today in Chuuk State, part of the Federated States of Micronesia, the production of popular music recordings flourishes. The demand for popular CDs in Chuuk, usually of love songs and Christian songs, is not only propelled by access to technologies, but is strongly driven by large populations of Chuukese residing in Guam and Hawai'i, as well as on the U.S. mainland. Chuukese migrants living abroad not only send technologies back to Chuuk, but they also record their performances and distribute them back to Chuuk's home islands. Some of the most innovative creations in contemporary Chuukese music reveal connections with migrant communities, and the texts of many popular songs are embedded with Islander experiences outside of and travel from the homeland. While contemporary music expresses localized themes and values for Chuukese, it also embodies a culture of travel, movement, and localization to other Pacific areas that is significant for Chuukese society today. Recordings of Chuukese popular music serve as a means of connecting the experiences of transnational communities across the Pacific and beyond.
The internet is opening up new spaces for communication between young post-revolutionary urbanites in the Lao People's Democratic Republic and the exiled communities of the diaspora in the United States and elsewhere. While the Lao Government values the internet for its ability to harness the economic potential of these communities, it also exposes young elites in the capital, Vientiane, to critical debates about what a future Laos 'should' be. Such debates are almost non-existent in the tightly controlled authoritarian public sphere within Laos. This article analyses the participation of post-revolutionaries in debates in the online public sphere and argues that it is informed by an ethics of reconciliation and responsibility lacking in the anti-communist politics of exile inspired by the West. The article is the product of extensive fieldwork in Laos and ongoing participation in online communities, discussion forums and messaging networks.
Communities across Borders examines the many ways in which national, ethnic or religious groups, professions, businesses and cultures are becoming increasingly tangled together.
It show how this entanglement is the result of the vast flows of people, meanings, goods and money that now migrate between countries and world regions. Now the effectiveness and significance of electronic technologies for interpersonal communication (including cyber-communities and the interconnectedness of the global world economy) simultaneously empowers even the poorest people to forge effective cultures stretching national borders, and compels many to do so to escape injustice and deprivation.
This article explores three fundamental aspects of text in the performance of Lao vocal music in the southern Lao province of Champasak: (1) the relationships between poetic structures and creativity; (2) extemporaneous composition of texts; and (3) repertory and its relationship to performance context.' I aim to provide an overall insight into the creativity and repertory of Lao khaplam texts with an emphasis upon indigenous concepts of textual structures, compositional methods, and thematic conventions and their associated terminology.2 Before exploring textual aspects it is necessary to provide the reader with some contextual information. Firstly, a general overview of Lao vocal music in Laos today is provided, locating this study within a broader tradition of Lao vocal music, and secondly, musicological information pertinent to the performance of Lao vocal music to remind the reader that the central topic of textual composition takes place within a musical framework.
Cet article a pour objectif une meilleure comprehension de la culture musicale populaire contemporaine dans les pays occidentaux principalement, mais aussi a l'echelle mondiale. L'A. montre qu'il serait necessaire de revoir le concept de culture qui est aujourd'hui totalement transforme par l'utilisation et la diffusion des technologies de pointe (multimedia, CD, recherches sonores, etc.). Cette technoculture offre un nouveau champ de recherche en ethnomusicologie et remet en cause les anciennes conventions sur la notion d'authenticite des traditions musicales. La world music offre un exemple interessant : les musiques ethniques sont popularisees grâce aux technologies de pointe mais font cependant l'objet de multiples detournements (exotisme, ethnocentrisme, ideologie New Age, profits industriels et commerciaux, exploitation financiere, etc.).
A review of recent research across several disciplines not surprisingly finds a wide variety of descriptions surrounding meanings, processes, scales and methods concerning the notion of 'transnationalism'. Here, several clusters or themes are suggested by way of disentangling the term. These include transnationalism as a social morphology, as a type of consciousness, as a mode of cultural reproduction, as an avenue of capital, as a site of political engagement, and as a reconstruction of 'place' or locality. These and other approaches to transnationalism are being explored in a newly commissioned ESRC research programme on Transnational Communities (see http:// www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk).
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University.
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