Island Songs edited by Godfrey Baldacchino

book cover

Published by Scarecrow Press, An Imprint of the Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780810881778
978-0-8108-8177-8 [Hardback]
978-0-8108-8178-5 [eBook]

Table of Contents

Forward and Introduction

Description [from the publisher's website]:
"Islands are concentrated "instances" of place, in every sense of the term. As such, there are no better candidates for observing and critiquing the dynamics of globalization. Through the close analysis of musical performance and traditions, the scholarly contributors to Island Songs provide a global review of how island songs, their lyrics, and their singers engage with the challenges of modernity, migration, and social change, uncovering common patterns notwithstanding the diversity and local specificity of their subjects. In this musical exploration of the world of islands, a shared and deep "sense of place" is celebrated in song. This collection of essays is no less than a sonic narrative, an attempt to sing the inherent contradictions and paradoxical modalities of island lives today.

Song lyrics, along with their accompanying music, can serve as a barometer of life and major cultural markers of change. Island Songs is a work of sonic anthropology that does more than probe song as a part of the sociocultural life on islands. It illuminates how song performs island life. Gathered here are 15 case study chapters on islands in the Caribbean, North Atlantic, Mediterranean, Baltic, and the South Pacific, all framed by four eclectic, conceptual essay contributions. In Island Songs, islands are presented as distinct vantage points for observing the merger of the local and the global, as poignantly expressed through song.

Melambes

Photo by Maria Hnaraki

This book brings together the perspectives and experiences of sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, cultural studies specialists, folklorists, ethnomusicologists, singers, and musicians. Island Songs will interest not only ethnomusicologists but any and all scholars interested in the effects of globalization on traditional cultures."

About the Editor:
Godfrey Baldacchino PhD
Professor of Sociology and Canada Research Chair (Island Studies)
University of Prince Edward Island, Canada
Visiting Professor of Sociology, University of Malta, Malta
Editor, Island Studies Journal
Vice-President, International Small Islands Studies Association (ISISA)
Director, Global Islands Network
Moderator: http://www.islandstudies.ca
Home Page: http://staff.um.edu.mt/gbal1
Author/Editor of Island Enclaves (2010), A World of Islands (2007), and Bridging Islands (2007)
Forthcoming Books: Divided Islands (Palgrave Macmillan); Island Independence Movements (Routledge); A Taste of Islands (Island Studies Press); Place Peripheral (ISER Press)

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