{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/105202"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/105202","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Song hunters in Svaneti: Musical tourism and other intercultural encounters in highland Georgia","abstract":"This dissertation analyzes the continuities and disjunctures between pre-socialist, socialist, and neoliberal Georgia, as exemplified in intersubjective, intracultural, and intercultural encounters between singers and musicians. It approaches these dynamics through an in-depth ethnographic examination of the Georgian highland region known as Svaneti, particularly examining the life of a key interlocutor: the Svan singer, instrumentalist, music teacher, folk ensemble director, and “songmaster” Islam Pilpani (1934–2017). In less than two decades, heavily mythicized Svaneti has gone from an isolated and dangerous rural backwater to a hot tourist destination that some fear is approaching the point of diminishing returns. Svan people, infamous for adhering to an exacting moral code of mountain hospitality and blood feud, have experienced startling changes to their way of life in this time period. The most entrepreneurial have capitalized on foreign fascination with Svaneti’s stunning natural landscapes and exotic, supposedly medieval culture. A key aspect of the latter is Svanetian music, which attracts foreign singers due to its archaism, connections to pagan ritual, and harmonies interpreted as strikingly dissonant. Intercultural encounters bear both risks and opportunities. As song tourists have expanded their own horizons and created new opportunities for Svan musicians, local musicking has shifted to accommodate and sometimes prioritize the needs of foreigners or lowland cultural administrators. By examining the relationships that develop between Svanetian musicians and people from other parts of the world, I uncover the power dynamics, agendas, and potentialities at play when localized musical customs become fetishized as commodities and artifacts of national cultural heritage.","abstract_html":"This dissertation analyzes the continuities and disjunctures between pre-socialist, socialist, and neoliberal Georgia, as exemplified in intersubjective, intracultural, and intercultural encounters between singers and musicians. It approaches these dynamics through an in-depth ethnographic examination of the Georgian highland region known as Svaneti, particularly examining the life of a key interlocutor: the Svan singer, instrumentalist, music teacher, folk ensemble director, and “songmaster” Islam Pilpani (1934–2017). In less than two decades, heavily mythicized Svaneti has gone from an isolated and dangerous rural backwater to a hot tourist destination that some fear is approaching the point of diminishing returns. Svan people, infamous for adhering to an exacting moral code of mountain hospitality and blood feud, have experienced startling changes to their way of life in this time period. The most entrepreneurial have capitalized on foreign fascination with Svaneti’s stunning natural landscapes and exotic, supposedly medieval culture. A key aspect of the latter is Svanetian music, which attracts foreign singers due to its archaism, connections to pagan ritual, and harmonies interpreted as strikingly dissonant. Intercultural encounters bear both risks and opportunities. As song tourists have expanded their own horizons and created new opportunities for Svan musicians, local musicking has shifted to accommodate and sometimes prioritize the needs of foreigners or lowland cultural administrators. By examining the relationships that develop between Svanetian musicians and people from other parts of the world, I uncover the power dynamics, agendas, and potentialities at play when localized musical customs become fetishized as commodities and artifacts of national cultural heritage.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Knight, Matthew E."],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Musicology","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Buchanan, Donna A.","Greenberg, Jessica","Silvers, Michael","Solis, Gabriel"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2019,"date_issued":"2019-08-23T20:47:28Z","date_published":"2019-08-23T20:47:28Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:44Z","subjects":["Ethnomusicology","Republic of Georgia","Svaneti","Svans","Caucasus","Postsocialism","Neoliberalism","Intercultural Encounter","Cultural Institutions","Political Economy","Hospitality","Gift","Moral Economy","Feasting","Georgian Polyphony","Georgian Folk Music","Folk Polyphony","Choral Music","Music Tourism","Cultural Tourism","Ecotourism"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["copyright 2019 Matthew E. Knight"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105202","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Buchanan, Donna A.","Greenberg, Jessica","Silvers, Michael","Solis, Gabriel"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Knight, Matthew E."]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2019-08-23T20:47:28Z","2021-08-24T09:15:20Z","2019-04-17","2019-05"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Musicology"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Ethnomusicology","Republic of Georgia","Svaneti","Svans","Caucasus","Postsocialism","Neoliberalism","Intercultural Encounter","Cultural Institutions","Political Economy","Hospitality","Gift","Moral Economy","Feasting","Georgian Polyphony","Georgian Folk Music","Folk Polyphony","Choral Music","Music Tourism","Cultural Tourism","Ecotourism"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["copyright 2019 Matthew E. Knight"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105202"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["This dissertation analyzes the continuities and disjunctures between pre-socialist, socialist, and neoliberal Georgia, as exemplified in intersubjective, intracultural, and intercultural encounters between singers and musicians. It approaches these dynamics through an in-depth ethnographic examination of the Georgian highland region known as Svaneti, particularly examining the life of a key interlocutor: the Svan singer, instrumentalist, music teacher, folk ensemble director, and “songmaster” Islam Pilpani (1934–2017). In less than two decades, heavily mythicized Svaneti has gone from an isolated and dangerous rural backwater to a hot tourist destination that some fear is approaching the point of diminishing returns. Svan people, infamous for adhering to an exacting moral code of mountain hospitality and blood feud, have experienced startling changes to their way of life in this time period. The most entrepreneurial have capitalized on foreign fascination with Svaneti’s stunning natural landscapes and exotic, supposedly medieval culture. A key aspect of the latter is Svanetian music, which attracts foreign singers due to its archaism, connections to pagan ritual, and harmonies interpreted as strikingly dissonant. Intercultural encounters bear both risks and opportunities. As song tourists have expanded their own horizons and created new opportunities for Svan musicians, local musicking has shifted to accommodate and sometimes prioritize the needs of foreigners or lowland cultural administrators. By examining the relationships that develop between Svanetian musicians and people from other parts of the world, I uncover the power dynamics, agendas, and potentialities at play when localized musical customs become fetishized as commodities and artifacts of national cultural heritage.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2021-05-01","The student, Matthew Knight, accepted the attached license on 2019-04-15 at 16:45.","The student, Matthew Knight, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2019-04-15 at 17:10.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2019-04-17 at 07:49.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #13648 on 2019-08-22 at 16:21:40","Made available in DSpace on 2019-08-23T20:47:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 KNIGHT-DISSERTATION-2019.pdf: 67172397 bytes, checksum: 78580d07e9d1b315caff24cd8182154e (MD5) Knight corrected diss for submission April 16.odt: 195304856 bytes, checksum: c93ade1bed9e7ef0615ab65c097f7c88 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4211 bytes, checksum: e57a902d3ad4ff019d3a038c02e32d52 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2019-04-17","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 112323 Lift date: 2021-08-23T20:47:38Z Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 112323 Lift date: 2021-08-23T20:48:32Z Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Limited Restriction Lifted for Item 112323 on 2021-08-24T09:15:20Z."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Song hunters in Svaneti: Musical tourism and other intercultural encounters in highland Georgia"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Buchanan, Donna A.","Greenberg, Jessica","Silvers, Michael","Solis, Gabriel"],"dc:creator":["Knight, Matthew E."],"dc:date":["2019-08-23T20:47:28Z","2021-08-24T09:15:20Z","2019-04-17","2019-05"],"dc:description":["This dissertation analyzes the continuities and disjunctures between pre-socialist, socialist, and neoliberal Georgia, as exemplified in intersubjective, intracultural, and intercultural encounters between singers and musicians. It approaches these dynamics through an in-depth ethnographic examination of the Georgian highland region known as Svaneti, particularly examining the life of a key interlocutor: the Svan singer, instrumentalist, music teacher, folk ensemble director, and “songmaster” Islam Pilpani (1934–2017). In less than two decades, heavily mythicized Svaneti has gone from an isolated and dangerous rural backwater to a hot tourist destination that some fear is approaching the point of diminishing returns. Svan people, infamous for adhering to an exacting moral code of mountain hospitality and blood feud, have experienced startling changes to their way of life in this time period. The most entrepreneurial have capitalized on foreign fascination with Svaneti’s stunning natural landscapes and exotic, supposedly medieval culture. A key aspect of the latter is Svanetian music, which attracts foreign singers due to its archaism, connections to pagan ritual, and harmonies interpreted as strikingly dissonant. Intercultural encounters bear both risks and opportunities. As song tourists have expanded their own horizons and created new opportunities for Svan musicians, local musicking has shifted to accommodate and sometimes prioritize the needs of foreigners or lowland cultural administrators. By examining the relationships that develop between Svanetian musicians and people from other parts of the world, I uncover the power dynamics, agendas, and potentialities at play when localized musical customs become fetishized as commodities and artifacts of national cultural heritage.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2021-05-01","The student, Matthew Knight, accepted the attached license on 2019-04-15 at 16:45.","The student, Matthew Knight, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2019-04-15 at 17:10.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2019-04-17 at 07:49.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #13648 on 2019-08-22 at 16:21:40","Made available in DSpace on 2019-08-23T20:47:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 KNIGHT-DISSERTATION-2019.pdf: 67172397 bytes, checksum: 78580d07e9d1b315caff24cd8182154e (MD5) Knight corrected diss for submission April 16.odt: 195304856 bytes, checksum: c93ade1bed9e7ef0615ab65c097f7c88 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4211 bytes, checksum: e57a902d3ad4ff019d3a038c02e32d52 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2019-04-17","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 112323 Lift date: 2021-08-23T20:47:38Z Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 112323 Lift date: 2021-08-23T20:48:32Z Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Limited Restriction Lifted for Item 112323 on 2021-08-24T09:15:20Z."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105202"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["copyright 2019 Matthew E. Knight"],"dc:subject":["Ethnomusicology","Republic of Georgia","Svaneti","Svans","Caucasus","Postsocialism","Neoliberalism","Intercultural Encounter","Cultural Institutions","Political Economy","Hospitality","Gift","Moral Economy","Feasting","Georgian Polyphony","Georgian Folk Music","Folk Polyphony","Choral Music","Music Tourism","Cultural Tourism","Ecotourism"],"dc:title":["Song hunters in Svaneti: Musical tourism and other intercultural encounters in highland Georgia"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Musicology"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:44Z"}