“Musicalized identities”: South Asian musical Third Space of Enunciation in Britain

Abstract

Within a multicultural society like Britain, cultural identity has become a pivotal concern for the nation’s various ethnic minorities. South Asian minorities, notably, the third generation, have adopted different strategies of integration within the mainstream British society while attempting to preserve their cultural idiosyncrasies. South Asian identities or what can be generally called “Asianness” manifested themselves in different socio-cultural expressions. Music has been one of those media of cultural and identity expressions. This article argues that music can be deemed as a “Third Space of Enunciation” for the new generations of ethnic minorities in general and South Asian ones in particular. Ethnic or “ethnicized” music seemed to proffer new horizons and possibilities of articulations for British ethnic minorities.
By analysing some contemporary British South Asian musical outputs, we attempt to show how fusion-based and hybrid music was a strategy to mobilize dominant British musical discourses to fight against racism and celebrate cultural identity within the context of multicultural Britain.