A Fresh Approach to Transculturation in Contemporary Music in Tahiti

Abstract

Transculturation has been underway since the beginning of Western presence in French Polynesia, and it is now clear that syncretism and 'borrowing' practices were already present in the pre-contact Pacific Islands. Nevertheless, the global flow of culture has gradually intensified over time, and there is a need to examine recent expressions resulting from such processes. Further, it is worthwhile attempting to ascertain precisely what the role and condition of pre-contact material in contemporary creative life at the present time is. Focusing on the interactions occurring in this metaphoric contact zone, as defined by Mary-Louise Pratt (2007), and drawing on Marshall Sahlins's theory of indigenisation of modernity (Sahlins 1993, Babadzan 2009) as well as the concept of localisation (Appadurai 1996, Diettrich, Moulin, and Webb 2011), this paper presents the outcomes of a fieldwork in Tahiti, French Polynesia in October 2013. The purpose is to attempt to understand the conditions of the interactions occurring at three levels - those of musical systems, material and conceptual tools, and socio-cultural practices - and to comprehend what and how these interactions contribute to musical change. After a brief outline of the specificities of contemporary Tahitian musical life and a discussion of the methodological tools employed, the study isolates three situations where transculturation processes occur: in the traditional musical idiom, in instrumentation and in transmission processes.

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