Censored Harmonies

Musical Representations of “Floating” Migrants and Collective Neglect of Inequality in Urban China

Kai Tang

Chinese »floating« migrants are a marginalized group of rural-to-urban migrants in Chinese cities. Their musical culture – about which little is known so far – reflects the tensions, contradictions, and conflicts inherent in this domestic labor migration. Kai Tang turns her focus to this largely underrepresented and understudied group and offers new perspectives on contemporary Chinese music and the roles of music in migratory processes. Her work contributes to the ethnomusicological study of minorities by revealing socio-political forces, compromises, restrictions, and agencies underlying musical representations of disadvantaged experiences.

About the Author

Kai Tang is an ethnomusicologist whose research focuses on Chinese music. She received her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Harvard University. Before joining the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna as a Postdoc Researcher, she taught in the sociology department at Peking University. She received the Deborah Wong Research and Publication Award from the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) and also the Best Paper Prize from the SEM Association for Chinese Music Research.