CFP: 2nd IASPM-SEA Conference 2020

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CFP: 2nd IASPM-SEA Conference 2020

Date
31 January – 2 February, 2020

Host
Ateneo de Manila University
Katipunan Ave, Quezon City, 1108 Metro Manila, Philippines

Organizer
International Association for the Study of Popular Music – Southeast Asia Branch (IASPM-SEA)

Theme
Within, Across and Beyond Borders: Southeast Asian Popular Music Studies

Statement
The concept of Southeast Asia as an area of study developed in line with American postwar scholarly interest, and the formation of many nation-states in the region are linked to extended histories of colonization, occupation or economic and political subjugation from various entities from Europe (Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, England). Thus, the development of popular music in Southeast Asia is also tied to a history of adaptation, adoption, affectation, contestation and continuity with American and European culture.
Within borders, further complexities of popular music identities and exchanges exist. Thailand’s music also includes that of ethnic communities such as the Lao, Khmer and Karen; Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore contain a diversity of popular music based on ethnic/dialect groups (Melayu, Jawa, Batak, Bugis, Kelantan, Iban, Kadazan-Dusun, Tamil, Hokkien); while the Philippines comprises popular musicking from each ethnolinguistic group’s entrenched sensibilities such as those from Pampanga, Cebu, Bacolod, Dumaguete, and Davao. Many forms of popular ethnic/linguistic/dialect music create distinctions, while also marking minority and marginal identities in the face of homogenizing nation-states. There are also some that express multilingual and intercultural dialogue and collaboration between ethnic groups; whether state sponsored, commercially motivated or community driven.

Across borders, popular music and its agents also travel and exert influences through fluid transnational networks across the dense mainland and vast islands of the region. Historically, cosmopolitan hubs such as Singapore served as a point of convergence for musical talent (composers, artistes, musicians) and industry (entertainment parks, film studios, record companies) to produce a wide range of entertainment products (films, records, stage-productions, print media) for a diverse range of vernacular mass markets. Popular music of the Malay-language, for example, was widely disseminated from such hubs across island Southeast Asia (including Indonesia, Borneo, Malaysia, Philippines), forming the imaginary of a ‘Nusantara’ region linked by a lingua franca that predated European colonialism. Thus, migration across borders within the region is also common among Southeast Asians; for example, musical genres, ideas and talent flows from Indonesia to Singapore, Philippines to Malaysia, Myanmar to Thailand.

In looking beyond the region’s borders, the postcolonial era of neoliberal globalisation and rapid and wide-ranging technologies of communication and mass media present new relationships of power, economic exchange and cultural capital that exist between the region and other influential Asian states such as China, Japan, South Korea and India. For example, popular music from South Korea (K-pop) and India (Bollywood) are widely consumed across Southeast Asia in various forms of media. Of course, Anglo-American influences of popular culture from the colonial era until present-day persist in Southeast Asian popular music in localised forms of jazz, rock, hip-hop, electronic dance music, indie and various other genres and subgenres of music. Through these forms of music, artistes and fans also form distinct global networks of interaction and exchange that transcend national and regional boundaries.
We invite papers on Southeast Asian popular music as well as other music that intersect with Southeast Asia (e.g. Southeast Asian diasporas in Africa, South America, North America, Europe and East Asia), along the lines of the following issues:
1. Within – What are distinctly local forms of popular music expressed within national borders? Are there practices on the margins of such national spaces that contest the hegemony of the state or state-imposed national cultures? How are aspects of ‘internal’ national-cultural identity promoted or challenged in hybridised/globalised popular music made with nation-state borders?

2. Across – What were the flows of movement and migration experienced by artistes and their music across national borders in Southeast Asia? How did these movements and musical exchanges shape their popular music and the communities that consumed or exploited their talent? How might the fluidities of Southeast Asia as a regional space of cultural and economic interaction be understood in expressions of popular music?

3. Beyond – What are the past and current trends of popular culture, external to the region, that influence Southeast Asia’s popular music? How do current technologies of mass media affect the performance, production and consumption of popular music in the region? How are relationships of power, economic exchange and cultural capital between the region and other influential states (such as China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, America, United Kingdom) expressed in the regions popular music? Further, how are particular Southeast Asian popular music artistes and producers localising the foreign or the global; or, in turn globalising the local?

Important Dates
Please submit an abstract (200­300 words), five keywords and a short a short bio (max. 100 words) by 15 September 2019 to iaspm.sea@gmail.com. Use your first name or surname for naming files (eg. Suriawati.pdf, Ahmad.doc, Tan.pdf, Pereira.doc). Please submit only Microsoft Word or PDF format files.

For panels, please submit a general panel description of 200­300 words, three to four abstracts (200-300 words each) and biographies (max. 100 words each) for each presenter. Use keywords from the panel description as the file name (eg. queerartistes.doc; laomusicvideos.pdf; indonesiapunk.doc, australasiahiphop.pdf)

Notice of acceptance will be given by October 15th, 2019.

Registration fee* (inclusive of 1 year IASPM membership subscription fee)

Early Bird Fees (Registration before 15 November 2019)

Waged members: USD 80.00
Unwaged / Students: USD 50.00

(after 15 November)

Waged members: USD 95.00
Unwaged / Students: USD 70.00

*Concessions available upon request and consideration of Conference Programme Committee.

Language
English

Program Committee
Lara Katrina Mendoza (Ateneo de Manila University)
Adil Johan (National University of Malaysia)
Isabella Pek (ASWARA, Malaysia)
Cristina Maria P. Cayabyab (University of the Philippines)
Azmyl Yusof (Sunway University Malaysia)