This article discusses the controversy surrounding the feted twentieth-century Chinese composer and folk song collector Wang Luobin. Wang’s relationship with the peoples and music of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region illuminates several aspects of Han-minority relations, in particular the consumption of Otherness and the contesting of identities. The controversy also illuminates problems surrounding the transformation of traditional or folk music intoa tangible commodity: problems of ownership and authenticity, in particular legal issues of copyright (who has the right to profit) and more emotive issues of moral authority (who has the right to represent). These issues have recently come to the fore in China as it undergoes its uneasy transformation into a socialist market economy, and they have special ramifications because of the state’s extensive and ongoing manipulation of folk music for political ends.
Amnesty International (1999) China: gross violations of human rights in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. 1 April. AI Index: ASA 17/018/1999 http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engasa170181999 (accessed Jan. 2005).
2.
Amnesty International USA (2005) Special focuscases: Rebiya Kadeer—prisoner of consciencehttp://www.amnestyusa.org/action/special/kadeer.html (accessed Jan. 2005).
3.
APPADURAI, ARJUN (1984) The Social Life of Things. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
4.
BARANOVITCH, NIMROD (2001) “Between alterity and identity:new voices of minoritypeople in China”. Modern China27, 3 (July): 359-401.
5.
BARANOVITCH, NIMROD (2003) “From the margins to the centre: the Uyghur challenge in Beijing”. China Q., no. 175: 726-750.
6.
BARMÉ, GERÉMIE (1999) In the Red: On Contemporary Chinese Culture. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
7.
BROWN, MICHAEL (1998) “Can culture be copyrighted?”Current Anthropology39, 2: 193-206.
8.
CLIFFORD, JAMES (1988) The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-century Ethnography, Literature and Art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
9.
DILLON, MICHAEL (1995) Xinjiang: Ethnicity, Separatism and Control in Chinese Central Asia. Durham East Asian Papers, 1-1. Durham: Univ. of Durham, Department of East Asian Studies.
10.
East Turkistan Information Agency (2001) “Dawanching to become Wang Lobing Music and Art City”. 27 March.
11.
FELD, STEVEN (1996) “Pygmy POP: a genealogy of schizophonic mimesis”. Yearbook for Traditional Music28: 1-35.
12.
GLADNEY, DRU (1990) “The ethnogenesis of the Uighur”. Central Asian Survey9, 1: 1-28.
13.
GLADNEY, DRU (1991) Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People’s Republic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
14.
GLADNEY, DRU (1994) “Representing nationality in China: refiguring majority/minorityi dentities”. J. of Asian Studies53, 1: 92-123.
15.
GUO DAHUI (1998) “Shuobujinde Wang Luobin” (The unending topic of Wang Luobin). Xinjiang yishu2: 31-34.
16.
GUTTERMAN, ALAN and ROBERT BROWN (1997) Intellectual Property Laws of East Asia. Hong Kong: Sweet & Maxwell Asia.
17.
HANN, CHRIS (1991) “Ethnic games”. Pp. 218-236 in Shirin Akiner (ed.), Cultural Change and Continuity in Central Asia. London: Kegan Paul International.
18.
HARRIS, RACHEL (1998) “Music, Identity and Representation: Ethnic Minority Music in Xinjiang, China.” Ph.D. thesis, University of London.
19.
HARRIS, RACHEL (2000) “From shamanic ritual to karaoke: the (trans)migrations of a Chinese folksong”. Chime, nos. 14-15: 48-60.
20.
HARRIS, RACHEL (2002) “Cassettes, bazaars and savingthe nation:the Uyghurmusic industryin Xinjiang, China”. Pp. 265-283 in Timothy J. Craig and Richard King (eds.), Global Goes Local: Popular Culture in Asia. Vancouver: Univ. of British Columbia Press.
21.
HOLM, DAVID (1991) Art and Ideology in Revolutionary China. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
22.
JI LIN (1996) Wang Luobin zhuan (A biography of Wang Luobin). Xining: Qinghai renmin chubanshe.
23.
JONES, ANDREW (2001)Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press.
24.
KATZ, RUTH (1970) “Mannerism and cultural change: an ethnomusicological example”. Current Anthropology11, 4-5: 465-475.
25.
KHAN, ALMAZ (1996) “Who are the Mongols? state, ethnicity, and the politics of representation in the PRC”. Pp. 125-159 in Melissa J. Brown (ed.), Negotiating Ethnicities in China and Taiwan. Berkeley: Institute of Asian Studies, Univ. of California, Berkeley.
26.
LE COQ, ALBERT VON (1911) Sprichwörter und Lieder aus der Gegend von Turfan. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner.
27.
LE COQ, ALBERT VON (1928) Buried Treasures of Chinese Turkestan; An Account of the Activities and Adventures of the Second and Third German Turfan Expeditions. Trans. Anna Barwell. London: George Allen & Unwin.
28.
LEE, GREGORY (1995) “The ‘East is red’goes pop: commodification, hybridity and nationalism in Chinese popular song and its televisual performance”. Popular Music14, 1: 95-110.
29.
MACKERRAS, COLIN (1995) China’s Minority Cultures: Identities and Integration Since 1912. New York: Longman.
30.
McDOUGALL, BONNIE (1980) Mao Zedong’s “Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art”: A Translation of the 1943 Text with Commentary. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
31.
MILLS, SHERYLLE (1996) “Indigenous music and the law: an analysis of national and international legislation”. Yearbook for Traditional Music28: 57-86.
32.
MUHETA’ER [MUKHTAR] (1994) “Zhe shi buneng rongrende” (This is insupportable). Zhongguo yinyue56: 1-1.
33.
NI RUILIN (1995) “Wang Luobin xiansheng, nin yueweile” (Mr. Wang Luobin, you have over-reached yourself). Renmin yinyue5: 22-24.
34.
Oq Ya (2002) Uyghur historical songs with historical backgroundttp://www.oqya.5u.com/photo4.html (accessed Jan. 2005).
35.
RADLOFF, WILHELM (1886) Proben der Volkslitteratur der nördlichen. türkischen Stämme. Vol.6, Dialekt der Tarantschi. St. Petersburg: [Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften].
36.
REES, HELEN (2003) “The age of consent: traditional music, intellectual property, and changing attitudes in the People’s Republic of China”. British J. of Ethnomusicology12, 1: 137-172.
37.
RUDELSON, JUSTIN JOHN (1997) Oasis Identities: Uyghur Nationalism along China’s Silk Road. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
38.
RYKER, HARRISON [ed.] (1991) New Music in the Orient: Essays on Composition in Asia since World War II. Buren, the Netherlands: Knuf.
39.
SCHERZINGER, MARTIN (1999) “Music, spirit possession and the copyright law: cross--cultural comparisons and strategic speculations”. Yearbook for Traditional Music31: 102-125.
40.
SEEGER, ANTHONY (1996) “Ethnomusicology, archives, professional organisations and the shifting ethos of intellectual property”. Yearbook for Traditional Music28: 87-105.
41.
STOKES, MARTIN (1994) “Introduction”. Pp. 1-28 in Martin Stokes (ed.), Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place. Oxford: Berg.
42.
TAYLOR, TIMOTHY (2001) Strange Sounds: Music, Technology and Culture. New York: Routledge.
43.
UPTON, JANET (2002) “The politics and poetics of Sister Drum: ‘Tibetan’music in the global marketplace”. Pp. 99-119 in Timothy J. Craig and Richard King (eds.), Global Goes Local: Popular Culture in Asia. Vancouver: Univ. of British Columbia Press.
44.
WANG LUOBIN (1995) “Wo he xibu min’ge” (The folk songs of the western regions and I). Renmin yinyue356: 32-32.
45.
WU, AITCHEN K. (1940) Turkestan Tumult. London: Methuen.
46.
WUSHOU’ER, YASEN [Yasin Ushur] (1994) “Yijian he jianyi” (Opinions and recommendations). Zhongguo yinyue56: 5-6.
47.
XIE SHI (1996) “Cong dui Wang Luobin de qinquan jiufen shuoqi” (Talking of the dispute over the violation of Wang Luobin’s rights)Wenhua6: 1-1.
48.
Xinjiang Weiwu’er zizhiqu yishu yanjiusuo (1995) “Guanyu shishou gequ zhuzuoquan de yijian” (Concerning opinions on the copyright of ten songs)Renmin yinyue356: 33-34.
49.
YANG MU (1994) “Academic ignorance or political taboo? some issues in China’s study of its folk song culture”. Ethnomusicology38, 2: 303-320.
50.
ZEMP, HUGO (1996) “The/an ethnomusicologist and the record business”. Yearbook for Traditional Music28: 36-56.
51.
ZHU HONG (1988) The Chinese Western: Short Fiction from Today’s China. New York: Ballantine Books.
