**Making the Kazakh Qyl-Qobyz: Musical Instrument as Sentient Being**

Saida Daukeyeva • Wesleyan University

October 30th @ 6pm • Daniel Family Commons

Across cultures and time, musical instruments have been ascribed person-like qualities and powers to transform human lives. But the idea that a musical instrument may have a personhood and life of its own has been contested by scholars who view material agency as a projection of human intentionality. What can the attribution of sentience and agency to a material sounding object reveal about the constitution of self and identity in a postcolonial society undergoing cultural change? This paper explores discourses around the sentience of the Kazakh qyl-qobyz (two-string bowed lute). A sacred instrument of shamans among nomadic pastoralists, the qyl-qobyz was suppressed and its players persecuted during the Soviet era. The national revival in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, however, has reinvigorated beliefs in its ability to heal, sound by itself, and mediate with the spirit realm. The paper examines the meaning of such discourses from an ecological perspective by situating the practice of one instrument maker within the political and social environment of a marginalized state in a globalized world.

Personhood
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