Paper short abstract:

Drawing upon ethnographic research of audio-visual archiving and commercial publication of folk music in India, this paper explores how digital technologies are mediating the ontology of "folk music" as part of public commons, and as cultural commodity.

Paper long abstract:

Folk music—traditional vernacular music forms associated with oral transmission, undefined authorship, and shared ownership—is increasingly being drawn into the digital realm across the world. New modes of storage, circulation, and creativity opened by digital technologies have invigorated drives to document, archive, and disseminate folk music, as well as its commercial circulation (e.g. heritage record labels), and creative deployments (e.g. sampling in popular music). Crucially, they have transformed the extent—both geographic and demographic—to which the music can now be disseminated.

Drawing upon ethnographic research of audio-visual archiving and commercial publication of folk music in India, this paper explores how digital technologies are mediating the ontology of "folk music." Institutional projects for audio-visual documentation and preservation increasingly integrate dissemination through digital archives and online exhibits. In rural and semi-rural areas, the availability and affordability of digital devices has given rise to decentralized documentation projects, undertaken locally by traditional practitioners and patrons. Linked to these archiving endeavors are burgeoning local industries for vernacular language music and media, and urban record labels directed to global audiences. Underlying the range of activities are, on the one hand, ideologies about folk music as part of public commons—heritage—and the obligation to provide wide (if not global) access to it, and on the other hand, its potential as commodity for both vernacular and cosmopolitan populations. This paper traces conflicting notions about folk music as cultural/intellectual property, as communally owned, and as heritage, which emerge as it traverses the digital terrain.