Abstract:

From the rough and gravelly sound of Mongolian throat-singing to the deep sound and open-legged sitting position of the Mongolian horsehead fiddle; from the images of strong, masculine Mongol steppe warriors to the viral popularity of the four-member, ethno-metal band The HU; contemporary stereotypes and media images of the Mongol people tend to be overwhelmingly masculine. This paper investigates the ways that Mongol women singers and fiddlers struggle against a male-dominated and masculinity-centric performance field. I show how women musicians offer unique and creative “re-sounding” challenges to conventional ways of listening to gender in the region. Drawing on Gaby Bamana’s work on gender divisions in Mongolia (2009, 2015, 2016) and Alexandra Lippman’s investigation of listening practices and modes of “listening across borders” (2018), I argue that Mongol women singers and fiddlers use close listening to overcome and to eventually “re-sound” the often rigid borders of femininity and masculinity through their musical performances. Focusing my work on women musicians in Inner Mongolia, China, I show that musicians in this region accomplish their work through multiple marginalized, intersectional identities, including gender, national, and ethnic positionalities. My work focuses on four pioneering women musicians in Inner Mongolia and their willingness to re-imagine the sonic boundaries of Mongol femininity in the twenty-first century.