[csaa-forum] RE: csaa-forum Digest, Vol 16, Issue 3

Jonathan MARSHALL jonathan.marshall at ecu.edu.au
Wed Aug 3 13:39:37 CST 2005


Dear John Whiteoak and listmembers,

I wasnt quite sure whether John Whiteoak wanted on or off-line feedback,
so Ive provided both!
JM


Dear John Whiteoak

This is a fascinating and timely piece which I wish you all the best. It
is hardly surprising that members of the ill-formed community that makes
up Australian Latinos were somewhat non-plussed by your presentations.
For obvious reasons, marginalised and/or exploited groups, particularly
those who culture has been strip-mined by members of other communities,
have a particularly political stake in ideas of "authencity" --- just
consider here the huge debates about who could vote for the old ATSIC
representation in Tasmania. And, for that matter, authenticity is often
also very important for those who exploit them.

I cannot see in your outline any specific discussion of this per se,
along the lines of postcolonial theory, Said's Orientalism, etc, but I
am assuming it --- and the equally charged racial politics this raises
--- will be dealt with in a suitably detailed introduction. My own
position is that, esp. as an outsider, one should start from a position
of critiquing cultural appropriation, and then move on. A history of
that appropriation itself would indeed be a useful addition to the
historiography, but it is clear from your outline that this is not what
you are proposing to do, and your study is (arguably) all the more
interesting for this.

Id like to be able to direct you to some other ideas or references, but
your clearly copious research more than exhausts my knowledge in the
field. A comparison with US Tiki culture however might also be
interesting. Im a big fan of Martin Denny's "Exotica Suite" and David
Chesworth's more recent, extremely flat irony / pastiche of this and
other similar musicological influences from popular and classical
musics.

The reference to 19th century anthropological theory about the gypsies
does strike me as a slightly odd inclusion given the time frame you are
dealing with. I am wondering, for example, if this construction of the
gypsy also echoes the late 19th century - WWII idea of the Jew as being
racially defined precisely by their lack of clear definition. As Gilman
has observed, it is more than slightly ironic that attempts to segregate
Jewish populations from gentiles was often based on the idea of Jews as
a "mongrel" race. The theory clearly has negative connotations, but it
nevertheless highlights an instability within this kind of thinking.
While the Jews are said to be below the Aryans in not even being a true
race, they are nevertheless deeply threatening for precisely this
reason. If they're not a race, on what basis does one restrict their
activities, since to be "a Jew" is simultaneously (by this kind of
reasoning) to be a "non-Jew". I suspect the construction of a racially
distinctive yet rather variable diasporic population like the gypsies
also reflects this kind of ambivalent thinking. In any case, there's a
vast literature on late 19th century and early 20th century racial
theory, degeneration, etc, which this kind of material raises which you
dont seem to, or even need to, engage with. Id suggest a more
contemporary discussion of gypsy characters would be more appropriate.

I suppose therefore, overall, given my own interests and research in fin
de siecle European medicine, Id like to see a bit more of the ambivalent
discusive (and in some case actual) violence which underpins these kind
of debates about authencity and "multi-culturalism" avant-la-lettre. I
dont get any trace, for example, in your outline, of anyone finding this
mixing of musical and cultural styles as deeply offensive (rightly or
wrongly). In this case, I dont mean so much the "true Latinos"
themselves, not least because Im guessing archival material from
Italian, Spanish, etc communities from this period about these kind of
activities are a bit thin on the ground. Presumably though, there were
religious leaders, community spokespeople, journalists and so on both
promoting both these idealised models of Latino/European/Mediterranean
exoticism that you discus as being attractive, modern, etc, --- but also
others claiming this represented a corruption of morals, a nightmarish
miasma of cultural mixing, a degeneration of British stock to the level
of the Mediterranean mongrel, etc. The politics of contestation about
these ideas would seem to be a crucial issue, not simply their
development and diffusion, and if this is in fact dealt with in your
book (as I suspect it must be to some extent, certainly in the
discussion of the gypsies) then it probably could be made a bit clearer
in the outline. There's a lot of this kind of writing about Jazz in
Australia, so it seems an obvious issue to address in looking at Latino
materials too.

Either way, this is a great looking piece. Good luck with it. I dont
suppose you'd like to come to this year's Totally Huge New Music
Festival in Perth and give another paper about it? We'd certainly love
to have you over here at WAAPA some time.

Sincerely
Jonathan Marshall


Jonathan Marshall, PhD, MA,
Research Fellow,
Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts,
Edith Cowan University,
2 Bradford Street,
Mt Lawley, WA 6050
PH: +618 9370 6796
FAX: +618 9370 6665
jonathan.marshall at ecu.edu.au

contributing editor,
RealTime Australia
PH: 0402 0155 23
http://www.realtimearts.net/
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Today's Topics:

   1. Feedback wanted on book project  (john whiteoak)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2005 19:33:57 +1000
From: john whiteoak <whiteoak at hotkey.net.au>
Subject: [csaa-forum] Feedback wanted on book project
To: csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au
Message-ID: <42EF3E05.7DF2EFC6 at hotkey.net.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Dear all
This is my first posting on the list after several years of following
threads with interest, as time has permitted.  I am primarily an
historian of music and to a lesser extent of dance but my interest in
cultural theory has increased in recent years, especially though
assocation with popular music studies people.  I have been working on a
new book for several years now and hope to be finished next September.
This new study takes a very unusual perspective on 'Latin' influence on
music and dance in Australia before Australian 'multiculturalism-so
unusual in fact that I have taken the unconventional  step of posting a
synopsis of it on my website as way of explaining what the project is
and attracting some useful feedback.

If any on the list have a moment to look over the explanation and offer
some constructive criticism it would be very valuable indeed coming from
your cultural studies perspectives.  I certainly would not describe the
work as a contribution to postcolonialism but some aspects of it might,
in a curious way, relate to it-or against it depending on how you read
my intentions.    To see the outline go to my website www.ausmdr.com and
thereon  to the The Latin Tinge link.
Many thanks
John  Whiteoak

Research Associate: Monash School of Music
Home: whiteoak at hotkey.net.au



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