UPSI Digital Repository (UDRep)
|
UPSI Digital Repository (UDRep)
|
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract : Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris |
| While the tehnaku, the iconic six-string curved neck harp of the Pgaz k’Nyau (Sgaw Karen) people has made a strong comeback after 19th and 20th century, scholars lamented its demise, many other traditional bamboo instruments of the Pgaz k’Nyau still remain little-known, not only in academia but increasingly within Pgaz k’Nyau communities themselves, due in part to national forestry laws, resettlement and evictions, modernisation campaigns, and an increasing scarcity of, or restricted access to, certain natural and cultural resources. This ethnographic study investigates the various uses of bamboo in two Pgaz k’Nyau communities in Thailand, illustrating the importance of local knowledge of natural resources and the place of bamboo in shaping Pgaz k’Nyau music, ethics, aesthetics, ecological activity, beliefs and social relations. Bamboo musical instruments, in legends and in everyday application, are co-created with help from rodents and insects, lure wild pigs from the forest, bookend human lifecycles, help to confine spirits to the forest and the afterlife and are reworked from pig troughs into slit-drums used to drum up communal action. This research discusses how these increasingly rare bamboo musical instruments speak to a variety of contemporary contextual issues faced in Pgaz k’Nyau communities. We argue that Pgaz k’Nyau bamboo is instrumental in reflecting and perpetuating long-standing eco-friendly cultural practices embodied in a five-part Pgaz k'Nyau prescription for managing ecological relations within the self, between self and other, between the human and animal world, between human and forest, and between human society and the supernatural world; and it does so in response to Thai political narratives that have inappropriately labelled the Pgaz k’Nyau as destroyers of national forests. |
| References |
Allen, A. and Dawe, K. (Eds). (2016). Current directions in ecomusicology: Music, culture, nature. New York, NY: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315752938 Buergin, R. (2003). Trapped in environmental discourse and the politics of exclusion: Karen in the Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary in the context of forest and hill tribe policies in Thailand. In Claudio O. Delang (ed.), Living at the edge of Thai society: The Karen in the highlands of northern Thailand. London: Routledge Curzon. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203356456 Kesmanee, C. (1994). Dubious development concepts in the Thai highlands: The chao khao in transition. Law & Society review, 28(3), 673-686. https://doi.org/10.2307/3054088 Dawe, K. (2016). Materials matter: Towards a political ecology of musical instrument making. In Aaron Allen and Kevin Dawe (Eds.), Current directions in ecomusicology: Music, culture, nature. New York, NY: Routledge. Delcore, H. (2007). The racial distribution of privilege in a Thai national park. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 38(1), 83-105. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022463406000944 Dirksen, Rebecca. (2019). Haiti's drums and trees: Facing loss of the sacred. Ethnomusicology 63(1), 43-77. https://doi.org/10.5406/ethnomusicology.63.1.0043 Fairfield, B. (2013). I am Tehnaku: The reification and textuality of “Chi” Suwichan’s Karen harp. Ethnomusicology Review 18. https://www.ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu/journal/volume/18/piece/697 Forbes, A. (1982). Thailand’s Muslim minorities: Assimilation, secession, or coexistence? Asian survey, 22(1), 1056-1073. https://doi.org/10.1525/as.1982.22.11.01p0424w Forsyth, T. and Walker, A. (2008). Forest guardians, forest destroyers: The politics of environmental knowledge in northern Thailand. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Jonsson, H. (Autumn 2004). Mien alter-natives in Thai modernity. Anthropological quarterly, 77(4), 673-704. https://doi.org/10.1353/anq.2004.0056 Jory, P. (1999). Political decentralization and the resurgence of regional identities in Thailand. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 34(4), 337-352. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1839-4655.1999.tb01084.x Hayami, Y. (1996). Karen tradition according to Christ or Buddha: The implications of multiple reinterpretations for a minority ethnic group in Thailand. Journal of southeast Asian studies, 27(2), 334-349. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022463400021093 Hinton, P. (1983). Do the Karen really exist? In John McKinnon and Wanat Bhruksasri (Eds.), Highlanders of Thailand. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Herndon, M. and McLeod, N. (1982). Music as culture, 2nd ed. Darby, PA: Norwood Editions. Kunstadter, P. (1983). Karen agro-forestry: Processes, functions, and implications for socio-economic, demographic, and environmental change in northern Thailand. Mountain research and development, 3(4), 326-337. https://doi.org/10.2307/3673036 Buadaeng, K. (2006). The rise and fall of the Tribal Research Institute (TRI): ‘Hill Tribe’ policy and studies in Thailand. Southeast Asian studies, 44(3), 359-384. McKinnon, K. (2011). Development of professionals in northern Thailand: Hope, politics and practice. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. Singkiree, N. (6 September 2019). Park official told to blame boss for Billy’s death. Bangkok Post. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1744429/park-official-told-to-blame-boss-for-billys-death. Odochao, J., Nakashima, D., and Vaddhanaphuti, C. (2006). An education rooted in two worlds: The Karen of northern Thailand. International social science journal, 58(187), 117-120. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2451.2006.00608.x Perlman, M. (2012). Ecology and ethno/musicology: The metaphorical, the representational, and the literal. Ecomusicology newsletter 1(2), 15-21. Laungaramsri, P. (2003). Constructing marginality: The ‘Hill Tribe’ Karen and their shifting locations within Thai state and public perspectives. In Claudio O. Delang, Editor, Living at the edge of Thai society: The Karen in the highlands of northern Thailand. New York: Routledge. Rujivanarom, P. (7 September, 2016). Court rules in favour of national parks department in Kaeng Krachan encroachment case. The Nation. Small, C. (1998). Musicking: The meanings of performing and listening. Wesleyan University Press. South, A. (2007). Karen nationalist communities: The “problem” of diversity. Contemporary Southeast Asia 29(1), 2007. Wongthes, S. (2011) The musical ancestors of Thai music in Suwannaphum. In Suwichan Phattanaphraiwan (Chi), Phleng tawng haam khawng Pgaz k’Nyau. Bangkok: Santisiri Press. Phattanaphraiwan, S. (“Chi”). (2014). Phleng tawng haam khawng Pgaz k’Nyau [Forbidden Songs of the Pgaz K’Nyau]. Bangkok: Santisiri Press. Phattanaphraiwan, S. (“Chi”). (2011). Rao khue tehnaku [I am tehnaku]. Chiang Mai: Lanna Media Productions. Tan, G. (2014). An ecology of religiosity: Re-emphasizing relationships between humans and nonhumans. Journal for the study of religion, nature and culture 8(3), 307-28. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v8i3.307 Numnonda, T. (1978). Pibulsongkram’s Thai nation-building programme during the Japanese military presence, 1941-1945. Journal of southeast Asian studies, 9(2), 234-247. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022463400009760 Winichakul, T. (2011). Siam’s colonial conditions and the birth of Thai history. In Volker Grabowsky, Editor, Southeast Asian historiography unravelling the myths: Essays in honour of Barend Jan Terwiel. Bangkok: River Books. Titon, J. T. (2018). Afterword: Ecomusicology and the problems in ecology. MUSICultures 45(1&2), 255-264. Titon, J. T. (2016). Why Thoreau? In Aaron Allen and Kevin Dawe (Eds.), Current directions in ecomusicology: Music, culture, nature. New York, NY: Routledge. Titon, J. T. (2013). The nature of ecomusicology. Musica e Cultura: Revista da ABET 8(1), 8-18. Walker, A. (September 2001). The ‘Karen Consensus’: Ethnic politics and resource-use legitimacy in northern Thailand. Asian ethnicity, 2(2), 145-162. https://doi.org/10.1080/14631360124782 Waksman, S. (2003). Reading the instrument: An introduction. Popular music and society 26(3), 251-261. https://doi.org/10.1080/0300776032000116941
|
| This material may be protected under Copyright Act which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. |