This longitudinal study weaves the complex stories of many disparate musics into an account of quests for identities that illuminates Lombok's history, its complex religious and ethnic composition, and its current political circumstances. It focuses on agents, musicians and leaders on the ground, and the socioreligious and artistic changes that transformed many music forms. The book outlines the years of political difficulty for music and years of transition and government interventions to remake musics, and identifies the emerging ideologies and developments that laid the groundwork for a diversity of musics - traditional, Islamic, popular - to simultaneously exist in an unprecedented way.

Between Harmony and Discrimination explores the varying expressions of religious practices and the intertwined, shifting interreligious relationships of the peoples of Bali and Lombok. As religion has become a progressively more important identity marker in the 21st century, the shared histories and practices of peoples of both similar and differing faiths are renegotiated, reconfirmed or reconfigured. This renegotiation, inspired by Hindu or Islamic reform movements that encourage greater global identifications, has created situations that are perceived locally to oscillate between harmony and discrimination depending on the relationships and the contexts in which they are acting. Religious belonging is increasingly important among the Hindus and Muslims of Bali and Lombok; minorities (Christians, Chinese) on both islands have also sought global partners. Contributors include Brigitta Hauser-Schaublin, David D. Harnish,I Wayan Ardika, Ni Luh Sitjiati Beratha, Erni Budiwanti, I Nyoman Darma Putra, I Nyoman Dhana, Leo Howe, Mary Ida Bagus, Lene Pedersen, Martin Slama, Meike Rieger, Sophie Strauss, Kari Telle and Dustin Wiebe.