Negotiating ethnicity and Islam in musical performances in West Java Indonesia

This dissertation examines Islamic musical performances as negotiation processes in which the meanings and values of Sundaneseness and Islam are contested. In this study, I explore the meanings and negotiations of Islam-Sunda discourses in three different musical forms performed by two groups, and contextualise this contestation of meaning in wider Indonesian society. My research examines two groups of Sundanese/Islamic performances. The first is Ath-Thawaf, an urban-based group; the second is Candralijaya, a rural-based community group. Utilising a qualitative research methodology, this study is based on observation of performances and related practices, and semi-structured interviews with performers, audiences and music experts as well as Islamic authorities. The analytical part of the thesis employs an interpretive analysis that utilises a Peircian semiotic approach. This research project links musical elements, visual displays, song texts, and shared experiences of listening music in three musical performances. It highlights different modes of interpretation in which contrasting interactions of local-national-global emerge. First, in terbang sejak (five frame drums with Islamic text) I found unclear and ambiguous boundaries between what people conceive as Islam and Sundanese culture. This is typically recognised by people in the village where listeners believe both Islam and Sundanese practices are an inheritance from their ancestors. Second, the local aspect of Sundaneseness is reflected in terebang gebes-beluk music, which foregounds the value of ‘authenticity’. Islamic symbols are not involved in these performances, yet listeners’ Islamic cultural background constructs meanings and interpretations in the music in form of an Islamic spiritual perspective. Third, the idea of newness that is produced by Ath-Thawaf in its musical project contests Islamic and Sundanese symbols interchangeably. The fluidity of Islamic characteristics of the music is indexed through its visual display and song texts, whereas the iconic sounds of the instruments are predominantly Sundanese. Through this thesis, I found that the construction of musical meanings is complex and varied based on different social-cultural contexts.