- Home
- Music / Culture
- music
- art
- social science
- Musical Resilience

Musical Resilience
Performing Patronage in the Indian Thar Desert
Music / Culture
by Shalini R. Ayyagari
Sales Date: 2022-11-08
Indian regional musicians find resilience in a postcolonial world
In Musical Resilience, Shalini Ayyagari shows how professional low-caste musicians from the Thar Desert borderland of Rajasthan, India have skillfully reinvented their cultural and economic value in postcolonial India. Before India's independence in 1947, the Manganiyar community of hereditary musicians were tied to traditional patrons over centuries and through hereditary ties. In postcolonial India, traditional patronage relations faded due to new political conditions, technological shifts, and cultural change. Ayyagari uses resilience, one of the most poignant keywords of our times, to understand how Manganiyar musicians sustain and enliven their cultural significance after the fading of traditional patronage.
CONTENTS • Chapter 1: Introduction • Chapter 2: (Post)Patronage • Chapter 3: Performance • Chapter 4: Development • Chapter 5: Politics • Chapter 6: Conclusion • Epilogue: Pandemic • Appendix • Figures • References
SHALINI AYYAGARI (Pittsburgh, PA) is an ethnomusicologist who works across the fields of musical culture, South Asian studies, critical ethnography, and development studies. She is an Assistant Professor of Music (Ethnomusicology) at the University of Pittsburgh.
"Ayyagari presents much-needed work in the realm of social and cultural history and anthropology of the Thar region. This book is a very important contribution in the study of influence of patronage on performative traditions and the locations of performative communities."
~Tanuja Kothiyal, author of Nomadic Narratives: A History of Mobility and Identity in the Great Indian Desert
"Musical Resilience is a compelling account of the strategies Manganiyar musicians use to (re)frame the significance of their musical heritage, adapt to the needs of their audiences, and accommodate changing social, political, and technological landscapes."
~Jayson Beaster-Jones, author of Bollywood Sounds: The Cosmopolitan Mediations of Indian Film Song
Forthcoming Events

2022 Ohio SIBS Fundraising Gala
Saturday. July 16, 2022 | 5:00 pm
Embassy Suites Columbus 5100 Upper Metro Place Dublin, OH 43017 United States
Read more
Rae Armantrout at San Diego Union-Tribune’s 6th Annual Festival of Books (FREE)
Saturday. August 20, 2022 | 10:00 am
University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110
Read more
“In a Few Minutes Before Later” Reading and Conversation with Robert Hass
Saturday. October 29, 2022 | 4:00 pm
11315 CA-1 Point Reyes Station CA 94956
Read more