
The Musical Gift
Sonic Generosity in Post-War Sri Lanka
Jim Sykes(Author)
Oxford University Press Inc
Published on 18. October 2018
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-0-19-091202-4 (ISBN)
Description
The Musical Gift tells Sri Lanka's music history as a story of giving between humans and nonhumans, and between populations defined by difference. Author Jim Sykes argues that in the recent past, the genres we recognize today as Sri Lanka's esteemed traditional musics were not originally about ethnic or religious identity, but were gifts to gods intended to foster protection and/or healing. Noting that the currently assumed link between music and identity helped produce the narratives of ethnic difference that drove Sri Lanka's civil war (1983-2009), Sykes argues that the promotion of connected music histories has a role to play in post-war reconciliation. The Musical Gift includes a study of how NGOs used music to promote reconciliation in Sri Lanka, and it contains a theorization of the relations between musical gifts and commodities. Eschewing a binary between the gift and identity, Sykes claims the world's music history is largely a story of entanglement between both paradigms. Drawing on fieldwork conducted widely across Sri Lanka over a span of eleven years--including the first study of Sinhala Buddhist drumming in English and the first ethnography of music-making in the former warzones of the north and east, this book brings anthropology's canonic literature on "the gift" into music studies--while drawing on anthropology's recent "ontological turn" and "the new materialism" in religious studies.
Reviews / Votes
In his multicultural analysis of Sri Lanka's soundscape, Sykes emphasizes the public exchange of melodies and rhythms, rituals and dances, between the island's islands diverse religions and ethnicities. This is an anthropologically rich book presenting a strong case against musical ethno-nationalism. * Dennis B. McGilvray, Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Past President of the American Institute of Sri Lankan Studies * As assertions about music and the state become increasingly cliche, The Musical Gift provides a timely critique of the "music and identity episteme." Focusing on acts of musical giving, the author provides a wide-ranging study of interpenetrating musical histories in Sri Lanka - shared histories that have implications for post-war reconciliation. Music scholars, anthropologists, and South Asianists may all find something useful and surprising in this exciting new work. * Richard K. Wolf, Professor of Music and South Asian Studies, Harvard University *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
30 photographs
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
599 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-091202-4 (9780190912024)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
02/2020
Oxford University Press Inc
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Shipment within 15-20 days

E-Book
08/2018
OUP eBook
€48.99
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E-Book
08/2018
OUP eBook
€16.49
Available for download
Person
Jim Sykes is an Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania. His research is in sound and music studies, religious studies, labor history/capitalism, and conflict studies, focusing to date on Sri Lanka and Singapore. He is the co-editor of Remapping Sound Studies (Duke University Press, 2019). He is also a drummer who has recorded and toured widely with numerous experimental and indie rock groups.
Author
Assistant Professor of MusicAssistant Professor of Music, University of Pennsylvania
Content
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration
- Supplementary Materials
- Part One: Finding Musical Gifts
- Introduction: For a Musicology of Karma and Reincarnation
- Chapter One: Sonic Generosity: Beyond Secularism and Conflict in Music Studies
- Part Two: Musical Giving as Protection and Destruction
- Checkpoint: Musical Gifts and the Movement of Ghosts
- Chapter Two: Berav¿ Secrecy and the Hoarding of Musical Gifts
- Chapter Three: Sri Lankan Tamil Musical Giving: An Introduction
- Chapter Four: The Cartography of Culture Zones: Social Relations and the Conversion of Sonic Money
- Part Three: The Discursive Erasure of Musical Giving
- Chapter Five: Beyond the Musicology of Disaster: War, Tsunami, Post-War
- Checkpoint: The Malays Who Sing in Six Languages
- Checkpoint: Sound as Commodity (Identity) versus Sound as Gift (Identity + Relations)
- Chapter Six: The Island Space: Music, Buddhism, and the Sinhalas
- Part Four: Rediscovering Musical Giving
- Checkpoint: Re-Connecting Sinhala and Tamil Musical Cultures
- Conclusion: The Regulation of Happiness in Post-War Sri Lanka
- References