Traditional music and ethnicity : a study of Hakka shange

Abstract

This research is an investigation into Hakka shange 客家山歌 (Hakka mountain songs) and their relationship with Hakka ethnicity, with principal discussions on the interplay between music making and ethnic/cultural identity in the Hakka populations. Hakka is a complex ethnic and cultural phenomenon which stepped into the limelight of history beginning in the 19th century. This study includes research into archival materials for an in-depth understanding of Hakka ethnicity and Hakka shange in the context of historical development, aiming to obtain new information/data and insights into historical data and theories documented by earlier studies. In this study, both synchronic and diachronic aspects are covered. Framed in an ethnomusicological paradigm, which posits music as part of culture and social life and utilises ethnography as a major means of gathering data, the study incorporates fieldwork carried out on location in Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland as an essential component.

Seeing cultures as fluid and adaptable to outer forces rather than as a monolithic entity, the aim of this study is not to seize the “last opportunity” to preserve records of Hakka shange, before this musical tradition declines further into oblivion, but rather, to account for the processes by which traditional music adapts to the global system at various local levels. It is noteworthy that, in the local-global continuum, a society is not conceived as a static and structured system in which music is performed as a mere cultural marker that connects to or reflects the other structural parts of that society. On the contrary, a society is seen as a flexible and fluid social space in which music plays an active, transformational role.