Ian R. MacMillen

Tamburica was used as a nationalistic music in the 1990s Croatian war for independence and now serves as a vehicle of interaction for Croats in the diaspora. Serbs and Roma also play tamburica as Croatian citizens and challenge its role in chauvinistic nationalism. Through fieldwork and archival research, this project examines the musical connections that exist between nations and ethnicities in order to analyze the different politics of exclusion and opportunities for interaction in Croatia as a nation-state, on the one hand, and, on the other, in international networks of Croat musicians. The project further investigates the relationship between ethnic discourses and expressive performance and develops a new theory of music’s role in constructing and/or surmounting ethnic difference.