Research on indie music in Taiwan has been richly developed through cultural, media, and sociological perspectives. Building on these foundations, this panel seeks to further enrich the discussion by foregrounding sound, ethnography, and performativity in the analysis of musical practices and scenes. By engaging with lived experience, performance, and sound as sites of meaning-making, we aim to contribute new insights to the study of Taiwan’s indie scenes and to
expand dialogue across methodological boundaries. Drawing on affect theory, queer embodiment, and critical reflections on power, the panel examines how gendered, colonial, and institutional hierarchies are produced and negotiated through diverse sonic and performative practices. Chun-Chia Tai explores women’s gossip in Taiwan’s indie scene as a mode of feminist critique and solidarity that challenges enduring patriarchal myths of artistic creativity and
freedom. Rory Fewer investigates queer karaoke performances of A-Mei across Sinophone spaces, revealing how acts of vocal imitation and slippage unsettle normative ideals of identity and authenticity. Mark Hsiang-Yu Feng reflects on Taiwan’s National Culture and Arts Foundation Critics Program, analyzing how its productivity regime reproduces colonial and masculine epistemologies of evaluation. This panel articulates an ethnomusicological
engagement with the politics of voices in postcolonial Taiwan.