Dissertation Research; Social Fragmentation and Youth Identity in Trindad Popular Music

该项目支持斯坦福大学一位文化人类学家的论文研究。该项目旨在研究流行音乐在确定特立尼达年轻人自我认同方面的作用。卡里普索音乐在表达该国历史上流行的社会关切方面一直发挥着核心作用，通过其目前作为跨国人员和资源流动中不发达节点的地位独立出来。利用参与者观察和密集访谈的人种学技术，以及对特立尼达850个家庭的随机调查结果，以及按地点、年龄、性别、社会经济地位和种族划分的音乐听众的广泛人口统计数据，这名学生将记录音乐对石油繁荣(20世纪70年代至80年代初)一代年轻人的意义。该项目将根据种族、阶级和性别调查人们收听和参与流行音乐的方式的差异。该项目将分析音乐风格的变化(一些人被认为更倾向于“逃避现实”，另一些人则更倾向于“政治化”或“根本性”)、观众的反应，以及音乐制作的一般社会和文化背景。这个项目很重要，因为它将促进我们对当地制作的音乐如何利用全球来源的理解，使其对不同的社区具有意义。鉴于流行音乐作为当代世界年轻人身份认同来源的重要性日益增长，这一案例研究将使我们对音乐对年轻人的意义的认识取得宝贵的进展。此外，该项目将增加我们社会关于世界这一重要区域的专门知识。

This project supports the dissertation research of a cultural anthropologist from Stanford University. The project is to study the role of popular music in defining the self-identity of young people in Trinidad. Calypso music has always played a central role in expressing popular social concerns in the country's history, from independence through its current position as an underdeveloped node in a transnational flow of people and resources. Using ethnographic techniques of participant observation and intensive interviewing, as well as drawing upon the results of a random survey of 850 households in Trinidad and extensive demographic data on music listenership by location, age, gender, socio-economic status and ethnicity, the student will document what music means to the `oil boom` (1970s to early 1980s) generation of young adults. The project will investigate the variation according to race, class and gender in how people listen to and participate in popular music. The project will analyze changes in the musical styles (some seen as more `escapist`, others as more `political` or `roots oriented`), audience reactions, and the general social and cultural antecedents to musical production. This project is important because is will advance our understanding of how locally produced music draws on a global set of sources to become meaningful to diverse communities. Given the enormous growth in importance of popular music as a source of identity for young people in the contemporary world, this case study will produce a valuable advance in our knowledge about the meaning of music for young people. In addition this project will add to our society's expertise about this important region of the world.