Ethnomusicology Lecture Series: Brad DeMatteo

For nearly 50 years, Cambodian Americans have built vibrant lifeworlds in the post-industrial mill city of Lowell, Massachusetts. Since arriving in the US as refugees following the Khmer Rouge genocide from 1975 to 1979, people of Cambodian heritage in Lowell now span three generations, and trajectories of space and self-making within this history are continually coursed. In this talk, I discuss the ways in which vocalities in the Cambodian communities of Lowell shape, and are shaped by, diverse experiences of refugeehood. Underlying this is the notion that voices hold the potential to be social, cultural, individual, and political resources. In Lowell, Cambodian Americans utilize voice-broadly defined and practiced-to craft senses of identity, claim space, and build community. I posit that listening to the voices of the Cambodian diaspora as both material and metaphorical records of refugeehood offers an intervention into the current political climate surrounding refugees in the US and the world writ large.

Free and open to the public. All are welcome.