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Introduction
Culture critic Néstor García Canclini, in his introduction to the 2005 edition of his classic work Hybrid Cultures, somewhat defensively replies to the objections to concepts of hybridisation - itself a reaction to uncritical and exaggerated celebrations of cross-cultural mixing - saying that it is 'necessary to understand [hybridisation] in the context of the ambivalences of the globalised mass diffusion and industrialisation of symbolic processes, and of the power conflicts these provoke' (García Canclini 2005, p. xxix). Rather than celebrating hybrid music, we are urged to reveal contradictions and that which resists being hybridised. Indeed, as García Canclini concludes, there 'is not only one form of modernity but rather several unequal and sometimes contradictory ones' (García Canclini 2005, p. xxix). Mexican sociologist Gilberto Giménez (2007, p. 268) reiterates that it is precisely this polarising and unequal characteristic that is so central to globalisation. Given that we acknowledge the urgency for understanding cultural interactions and musical appropriations or exchanges in the context of the ambivalences of the globalised mass diffusion and the power asymmetries involved, how can we then critically and fruitfully engage in a scholarly dialogue - a dialogue that would ideally include all academic disciplines that focus on music?
Sarah Cohen once called upon popular music scholars to embark on an ethnographic approach to
increase our knowledge of the details of popular music processes and practices. [For] only with such knowledge can we be justified in making more general statements about popular music (e.g. regarding globalisation and its effects, the nature of popular music as mass culture, processes of consumption and production, etc.). More importantly, perhaps, such an approach would remind us that general statements tend to mask the complex interrelatedness of contexts, events, activities and relationships involved with popular music. (Cohen 1993, p. 135)
Much time has passed since, yet few popular music studies rely on the kind of knowledge gained by doing in-depth ethnography. While Cohen pointed to the 'potential for an alternative or complementary ethnographic perspective' (Cohen 1993, p. 126), I would like to emphasise the necessity for critical cultural analyses that are rooted in an ethnography of direct encounter and active participation. My case study, thus begins with a textual analysis...