City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Publications and Research John Jay College of Criminal Justice 2000 The Construction of a Diasporic Tradition: Indo-Caribbean "Local Classical Music" Peter L. Manuel CUNY Graduate Center How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/jj_pubs/335 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact:
[email protected] VOL. 44, NO. 1 ETHNOMUSICOLOGY WINTER 2000 The Construction of a Diasporic Tradition: Indo-Caribbean "Local Classical Music" PETER MANUEL / John Jay College and City University of New York Graduate Center You take a capsule from India leave it here for a hundred years, and this is what you get. Mangal Patasar n recent years the study of diaspora cultures, and of the role of music therein, has acquired a fresh salience, in accordance with the contem- porary intensification of mass migration and globalization in general. While current scholarship reflects a greater interest in hybridity and syncretism than in retentions, the study of neo-traditional arts in diasporic societies may still provide significant insights into the dynamics of cultural change. In this article I explore such dynamics as operant in a unique and sophisticated music genre of East Indians in the Caribbean.1 This genre, called "tan-sing- ing," has largely resisted syncretism and creolization, while at the same time coming to differ dramatically from its musical ancestors in India. Although idiosyncratically shaped by the specific circumstances of the Indo-Caribbean diaspora, tan-singing has evolved as an endogenous product of a particu- lar configuration of Indian cultural sources and influences.