Abstract
This paper explores to show the actual activities of Tibetan pop musicians by focusing on the networks of commercial activities of Tibetan Pop musicians living in India and Nepal. This paper aims to describe and analyze the musicians’ actual lives and networks which previous studies exploring musicians’ activities in terms of representation and the construction of a group identity have not argued enough, and, at the same time, to show a sketch of the recent situation surrounding Tibetan refugees. That is, this paper suggests that we need to focus on musicians’ commercial activities as a foundation to attempt to understand the actual situation surrounding the Tibetan refugees living in India and Nepal. Because of the transformation of media environment surrounding them and so on, musicians have been pursuing the activities based on the networks of commercial activities which has been established by Tsering Gyurmey since the late 1990s and sometimes uniquely developed by each musician. Musicians’ lives depend on them so much in order to survive and these networks reflect what the situation they live is and how they manage to survive as musicians in India and Nepal. On the other hand, such persons like organizers, their fans and Nepali merchants who pay money to musicians’ activities add unique meanings to their musical activities. They utilize the networks which musicians have established to accomplish each purpose. This paper argues that such practices contribute to the formation of the incompatible situation of the networks of commercial activities surrounding Tibetan Pop and of the Tibetan refugees and diverse actors surrounding them. This paper shows the facets of musicians as a vocation, the duality of the networks of commercial activities and the incompatible situation, which is based on its duality, of the Tibetan refugees and persons surrounding them by describing and analyzing the the networks of commercial activities by musicians.
