Singing Across Divides

An ethnographic study of music performance migration and circulation <em>Singing Across Divides</em> examines how forms of love and intimacy are linked to changing conceptions of political solidarity and forms of belonging through the lens of Nepali <em>dohori </em>song. The book describes <em>dohori</em> improvised dialogic singing in which a witty repartee of exchanges is based on poetic couplets with a fixed rhyme scheme often backed by instrumental music and accompanying dance performed between men and women with a primary focus on romantic love. The book tells the story of dohori's relationship with changing ideas of Nepal as a nation-state and how different nationalist concepts of unity have incorporated marginality in the intersectional arenas of caste indigeneity class gender and regional identity. Dohori gets at the heart of tensions around ethnic caste and gender difference as it promotes potentially destabilizing musical and poetic interactions love sex and marriage across these social divides. <p/>In the aftermath of Nepal's ten-year civil war changing political realities increased migration and circulation of people media and practices are redefining concepts of appropriate intimate relationships and their associated systems of exchange. Through multi-sited ethnography of performances media production circulation reception and the daily lives of performers and fans in Nepal and the UK <em>Singing Across Divides</em> examines how people use dohori to challenge (and uphold) social categories while also creating affective solidarities.<br>