This paper examines the treatment of race and racial theories in comparative musicology during the Nazi era, with a focus on the work of the influential German ethnomusicologist Fritz Bose. I argue that Ethnomusicology in German-speaking countries has largely overlooked its past, particularly its contributions to the theorization of race in culture. Existing literature often neglects or minimizes the significance of the period between 1933 and 1945 (cf. Reinhard 1976; Christensen 1991). More recent studies have begun to address ethnomusicology's past, focusing on researchers’ affiliations, institutional involvement, and ideological stances (Bleibinger 2001; Mildner 2003; Nußbaumer 2001). Instead of reassessing Bose’s ties to the Nazi regime or presenting new archival evidence, this paper focuses on his academic writings, methodological approaches, and the ideas he espoused. Through an examination of his publications before, during, and after the Nazi period, I demonstrate how continuities and developments in comparative musicological research, theory, and concepts challenge the notion of a disciplinary hiatus. I explore the role of race as a concept in Bose’s writings and its intersection with other social categorizations and theories such as Evolutionism and Kulturkreislehre. Lastly, I address the persistence of race as a determining factor in human musicking well into the post-war era. By shedding light on Bose’s scholarly contributions and the broader context of comparative musicology during the Nazi era, this paper aims to contribute to the discipline’s historiography of ideas and initiate a broader discussion about the implications for contemporary scholarship.

After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese state announced the existence of 56 ethnic groups, including the Han, the ethnic majority occupying over 90 percent of China’s population, and 55 ethnic minorities. Since then, these 55 ethnic minorities have become subjects in ethnomusicological research and also serve as persistent identifiers in the collection, preservation, and publication of Chinese folk and traditional music. In this paper, I argue that these officially recognized ethnicities are unreliable, misleading categories in the study of Chinese music, because a large portion of them did not exist before 1949.

China vastly expanded its territory over the past centuries. Hundreds of tribal groups native to the annexed regions had established their distinct non-Chinese cultures before their lands become parts of China. When central governments failed to gain effective control over the socio-cultural practices on the annexed lands before 1949, these native peoples managed to maintain their diverse non-Chinese cultures and musical traditions. However, since the 1950, these culturally disparate native peoples have been combined, mixed, and officially recognized to be components of some freshly proposed ethnicities.

Based on my extensive ethnographic research conducted during the past two decades, this paper answers two questions through two case studies: What is the role of state-arranged musical activities in generating shared attributes among dozens of culturally disparate groups registered into the same ethnicity? How state-sponsored musical representations help national or global audiences imagine the long-existence and unified culture of these newly created ethnic minorities?

Public elite discourses on Afro-diasporic music in early twentieth-century Lima depicted its racialized practitioners as anonymous staples of local musical traditions, while associating them with stereotypes of backwardness, hypersexuality, and moral laxity. Grassroots Afro-Peruvian musicians were aware of these representations of themselves and routinely engaged with them as part of their artistic practice. Those racialized practitioners were thus mindfully involved in the racial dynamics and representational politics around their musical practices, regardless of their intentions. This paper draws on the limited sources documenting the voices and practices of blue-collar Afro-Peruvian musicians to examine how they engaged with the racializing representations crafted by Criollo cultural elites and the material effects of those depictions on their lives. It builds upon critical race studies musical scholarship and new ethnomusicological literature on Afro-Latin-American music. The paper scrutinizes compositions, documented performances, music recordings, testimonies, and other sources to identify instances of Afro-Peruvian grassroots musicians' agency in their routine encounter with a racially discriminatory musical establishment. I argue that these practitioners were conscious decision-makers who strategically engaged with their environment to improve their material conditions while finding spaces to challenge the status quo. Such agency, however, often reflected also their identification and compliance with the elite nationalist discourse asserting their subaltern position. By resurfacing the voices, creations, and actions of grassroots Afro-Peruvian musicians of the time, this paper highlights the contradictions faced by underprivileged racialized individuals as they navigated systems where systemic racism shaped their precarious standing in complex and often subtle ways.