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YouTube Music Videos and the Construction of Yemeni Identity
Abstract
This paper will look at one instance of internet music videos as spaces for both the (re)formation of ethnic, national, and diasporic identities, and the expression of xenophobia, ethnic and national conflict, and racism. Videos featuring Yemeni Jewish singers, performing “traditional” songs appear frequently on Youtube. The songs are mostly recorded in Israel, where the majority of Yemeni Jews have lived since their mass emigration from Yemen in 1949-50. Since these singers do not generally film “official” music videos, the visual content of the YouTube clips is most often user-made montages of pictures of the singers, Yemen, and random Yemenis. Below the video clips are user comments from around the world. The majority of the commentators appear to be Yemenis, Jews and Muslims, along with Jews and Arabs from other places. The discussions – about the songs themselves, historic Jewish-Muslim coexistence in Yemen, the politics of the state of Israel, Zionism, and Arab nationalism – are carried out in a mix of Arabic, English, and Hebrew. Yemeni Jews in Israel have maintained many of the customs they brought with them from Yemen, including the performance of “traditional” music. Because of the Arab-Israeli conflict, however, they have not been able to maintain many concrete ties with Yemen itself, or with Yemeni Muslims there or in the Diaspora. In fact, there appear to be two distinct Yemeni diasporas – one Jewish, made up of permanent emigrants, centered in Israel and focused on an increasingly “imagined” Yemen, and one Muslim, composed of emigrants and temporary migrant workers throughout the world, focused on contemporary Yemen. Music videos on YouTube produce spaces in which these two Yemeni groups interact with each other and the larger Arab and Jewish worlds. They are also sites for the construction of, and dispute over, identity. For Yemeni Jews these songs are declarations of Yemeni-ness. Some Arab commentators, however, question the possibility of being both Jewish and Yemeni. From both sides, comments range from racist to conciliatory to nostalgic. This paper will analyze users’ comments and interactions, along with the musical arrangements and lyrical content of the songs, to the highlight the role of music in the construction of identity and tradition, and the way that internet technology is impacting that role. It will conclude with a discussion of music as a possible site of reconciliation, coexistence, and/or conflict.
Discipline
Other
Geographic Area
All Middle East
Arabian Peninsula
Israel
Yemen
Sub Area
Cultural Studies