Music Worlding in Palau: Chanting, Atmospheres, and Meaningfulness

Abels, Birgit (2025-10-01). Music Worlding in Palau: Chanting, Atmospheres, and Meaningfulness. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. doi:10.5117/9789463725125. ISBN 978-1-003-70022-7.

Abstract: The introduction presents the work’s theoretical framework and trajectory, outlining its rationale and aim in relation to Palau in the Western Pacific. It introduces the notions of meaningfulness and atmospheres and positions them vis-à-vis Pacific Islander and specifically Palauan ontologies, with stated keywords meaningfulness, atmospheres, and Pacific Islander ontologies. Across the past thirty years of scholarship in multiple disciplines, the text situates lived experience as inseparable from its environments and directs attention to meaningfulness as a major analytical category for the study of music and experience in Palau and the wider Pacific . The composition of the volume is documented through earlier iterations: small portions first appeared elsewhere; parts of Chapters 1 and 3 appeared in an earlier form in Abels 2018b; parts of Chapter 1 relate to Abels 2016 and 2020a; an earlier version of Chapter 2 appeared as Abels 2020a; and Chapter 5 is related to Abels 2020b . The conclusion revisits the central argument, catalogs the key concepts used for analyzing musical meaningfulness, and addresses theoretical and methodological implications for music research beyond the Western Pacific ethnographic context. The index and publications listings include works relevant to Asia and the Western Pacific, naming Frédéric Bourdier, Maxime Boutry, Jacques Ivanoff, and Olivier Ferrari on borderlands across Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar; Michiel Baas on transnational migration and Asia; Kees van Dijk on Pacific Strife concerning great power rivalries in Asia and the Western Pacific from 1870 to 1914; Juliet Pietsch and Marshall Clark on migration and integration in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australia; Arndt Graf and Azirah Hashim on African-Asian encounters; Wendy Smith, Hirochika Nakamaki, Louella Matsunaga, and Tamasin Ramsay on globalizing Asian religions; Ngok Ma and Edmund W. Cheng on the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong; Emilia Roza Sulek on trading caterpillar fungus in Tibet; Eva P.W. Hung and Tak-Wing Ngo on shadow exchanges along the New Silk Roads; Tamas Wells on narrating democracy in Myanmar; and Ishihama Yumiko and Alex McKay on the early 20th century resurgence of the Tibetan Buddhist world, grouped under Publications / Global Asia.

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OpenAlex: W4200434199