Musicultural Identity and Intersecting Geographic Contexts in Oceania

Abstract

In discussing the impact of intersecting geographical contexts in Oceania, I will consider the phenomena of cultural and subcultural difference in music through local, national and globalised contexts. I will examine these phenomena at the points where they intersect, what we might call borderlands—regarded as a ‘third space’ (Bhabha H, The location of culture. Routledge, London, 1994)—where hybrid identities can be formed that shape meaning and learning in culturally inclusive ways. In this essay I propose that musical identity allows for cultural and artistic perspectives to be revealed across the broad palette of genres in music education. In the New Zealand context I use Māori popular music as a specific example. I use the term musiculture in an attempt to break down the tensions between function, status, and taste in order to reveal commonalities between musical forms and new ways of hearing and enacting music. Blacking (How musical is man? University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1973) reminds us that “in any society, cultural behaviour is learned” (p. 103). I suggest that when culture is framed within a geographical context, it takes on different perspectives within the geographical space and in music education it becomes a pattern of interconnected musicultural traits.