Cultural Activism, World Music and Cosmopolitan Mentalities in Corsica

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Abstract

Over the past decade, a number of groups from the Mediterranean island of Corsica have made their mark in international festival and concert tour circuits as well as producing a series of prize-winning CDs. Many of these groups now work in collaboration with artists, composers and producers from outside the island. My paper outlines the way in which this new wave of popular musical activity has evolved in response to a series of intersecting trends, including (a) the growth of the world music industry and the transnational fashion for both “ethnic” and syncretic styles; (b) the more specific French notion of métissage, which relates to the trend towards multiculturalism within France as well as serving as a translation for “world music”; (c) the ecumenically and humanistically inclined post-nationalist spirit in Corsica itself; (d) the trope of Mediterraneanism, with the Mediterranean represented as syncretic by nature; (e) interregional alliances promoted via the programmes of the European Union, with collaborative intercultural musical projects being directly supported by the EU structural funds; (f) the Corsican Assembly’s official promotion of a policy of ouverture; and (g) the mapping of postmodern notions of polyphony and intertextuality onto the indigenous multi-part singing style, allowing the recording studio and international stage to be conceived as spaces where harmony can be created out of difference in a way that is in direct continuity with traditional practice. Globalising trends have, at the same time, been held in check by a strong sense of insular identity and deep-seated allegiances that ensure a continued dedication to local community. Groups like Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses, I Muvrini and A Filetta have become skilled at controlling the interface between indigenous ways of being in the world and more global modes of operation, their negotiation of the delicate balance between culture as everyday life and culture as transnational commodity being informed by a sensibility that is both aesthetic and moral. I consider the extent to which these groups might be seen to fit Guilbault’s depiction of world music artists as “cosmopolitans who function in and out, at will, of what has been traditionally perceived as the totalizing ‘system’ … controlled by the dominant cultures” (1993, 39), while also evaluating their activities in the context of Appiah’s notion of “rooted” cosmopolitans. My analysis of the motivations and rationalisations underpinning contemporary musical activity draws substantially on the words of the musicians themselves as they reflect on their role as locally rooted but globally active players at the start of a new millennium.

Keyword(s)

Corsica polyphony world music métissage intertextuality Mediterraneanism “rooted” cosmopolitans.

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