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Rumba Rules: The Politics of Dance Music in Mobutu's Zaire
... Towels and handkerchiefs are particularly handy for percussionists who need to dry 28 "spraying" money as a form of tipping is an act of praise observed across West and Central africa. see, for example, White (2008). 29 The presence of towels, and particularly white towels, in Beninese cultural performance might be productively compared with the political history of the white handkerchief and its use in public performances in the Republic of Guinea (see dave 2019). ...
... sweat features in recent africanist ethnographies, with stories from south africa (steingo 2016; Meintjes 2017) to Ghana(Friedson 2008;Feld 2012) to the democratic Republic of Congo(White 2008) all pointing to rich social aesthetics around perspiration. ...
This article revisits a familiar trope in African music studies: “hot rhythm.” By tracing the lineage of the “hot” concept through twentieth and twenty-first century Africanist scholarship, I demonstrate the prevalence of foreign-made metaphors in contemporary African music studies and suggest scholars rethink whose metaphor and whose hotness they employ. What is the relationship of the metaphorically hot to phenomenal sensations of hotness? And what is the relationship of the “hot” concept to lived experiences of heat? I explore the relevance of heat as a material condition and hotness as a condition of being to music making in Africa with reference to ethnographic research with amateur brass band musicians in the Republic of Benin. This essay’s primary contribution is to apply an ecomusicological critique to an enduring climatic metaphor in African music discourse. My appeal to rethink the long-accepted analytical metaphor of “hot rhythm” further strives to destabilise entrenched theories of African music formulated by foreign scholars and instead focus attention on African concepts and experiences.
... But code-switching may also reinforce various forms of exclusion, as in the case of contemporary rap music in Québec, where the use of franglais summons exclusionary language from historical majorities who perceive the practice of mixing languages as a threat to their identity and as a rejection of their values. 21 The aesthetic of rap music (and hip-hop more generally) clearly embodies a spirit of opposition and resistance, though we must careful about reducing any genre of popular music to its status as "rebel music" (White 2008). 22 Based on previous studies of rap music in Québec, there is good reason to believe that the use of franglais for artistic purposes is a source of oppositional pleasure, or what Low refers to as a "counter normalizing move" (Low, Sarkar, and Winer 2009). ...
... 14. The relatively young field of popular music studies has been plagued by a tendancy among scholars to focus on lyrics and their "message" at the expense of the analysis of sound (White 2008). I have decided to focus on language in this analysis because of its centrality to the musical genre, but also because the public debate about this music in Québec has been focused on this issue. ...
In the summer of 2014, the release of an album by a Montreal-based hip-hop group whose lyrics systematically combine words and phrases from English and French activated fears among the francophone majority about their future as a national minority. Neo-conservative nationalists responded to the album by criticizing youth for having “massacred” the French language and for giving in to the glamour of American rap music. By recalling Québec’s fragile status as a linguistic minority and its ongoing struggle to defend the French language vis-à-vis the rest of Canada, criticisms drew sharp lines between insiders and outsiders. This text takes inspiration from critical sociolinguistics and recent analyses of race relations in Québec to show that code-switching in popular music can create new opportunities for shared community among young people of diverse backgrounds, but these emerging forms of solidarity do not necessarily translate into belonging in terms of the larger political community. © 2019
... Desroches (2008) propose également de concevoir la performance comme « une série de modalités de production et de mise en communication [acteurs et auditoire] qui contribue de façon significative à l'édification de la stylistique d'une pratique musicale », présentant les différents paramètres de la performance qui inclura, pour la chercheure, le cotexte, le contexte, l'interaction et la communication, et les modalités de réalisation (Desroches, 2008 : 104 et suivantes). L'anthropologue Bob W. White accorde au public une part active dans la performance, de même qu'aux textes des chansons qui devraient être considérés comme autant d'éléments imbriqués dans un espace ou un ensemble communicationnel qu'il appelle la « performativité » (White, 2008), terme emprunté de l'anglais performativity (Austin, 1962;Searle, 1979). Ces chercheurs ici mis en exergue ne sont pas les seuls à s'intéresser à l'étude de la performance (pensons à Regula Qureshi, 1987, entre autres), mais ces derniers insistent sur l'importance d'étudier la performance de façon beaucoup plus large que l'analyse axée sur la seule dimension sonore, regard qui examine souvent le son indépendamment de l'acte musical. ...
... Il sera proposé ici de faire une distinction entre ces concepts qui semblent, certes, démontrer tous deux une action sur le répertoire musical (par exemple), mais qui semblent s'appliquer à des moments « différents » de cette action. Le concept de « performance », au sens pragmatique où Desroches (2008) l'entend, a déjà été mentionné et adopté dans le cadre de la syntagmatique performancielle, tout comme le concept de « performativité » de White (2008) et l'adjectif « performanciel » de Lacasse (2006), qui renvoient tous au moment précis qu'est celui de l'acte musical (un concert, par exemple). ...
Portant sur les modalités d’appropriation de la pratique chorale occidentale en milieu catholique chez les Sérères noon de Saint Pierre Julien Eymard de Koudiadiène, au Sénégal, ce mémoire tente de voir pourquoi, et surtout comment les différents syncrétismes agissent sur divers symbolismes sénégalais. Il vise plus particulièrement à comprendre toute l’importance de l’action de la collectivité dans la mise en acte du répertoire choral, et à comprendre comment l’improvisation spontanée en ensemble se construit en situation de performance dans ce qui est appelé ici la plurivocalité linéaire. Ce mémoire vise dans cette foulée à décrypter le sens autour de cette pratique spécifique du chant choral et à cerner comment le processus d’acculturation agit sur l’identité culturelle des Sérères noon. Finalement, il vise à dégager les affects en situation de performance de la chorale qui semble détenir un rôle central pour les membres de la paroisse Saint Pierre Julien Eymard de Koudiadiène, et à comprendre et mettre en valeur une pratique musicale et son contexte d’insertion social jusqu’alors peu étudiés de façon systématique.
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On the modalities of appropriation of Western choral practice among Catholic Sérères noon of Saint Pierre Julien Eymard of Koudiadiène, Senegal, this dissertation tries to demonstrate why and how different syncretisms act on various Senegalese symbolisms. It aims to understand more particularly the importance of the community in the mise en acte of the choral repertoire, and how spontaneous improvisation is built in performance situation in what is called here the plurivocalité linéaire. This dissertation is in this vein to decipher the meaning of that specific practice of choral singing and to point how the acculturation process acts on the cultural identity of Sérères noon. Finally, it aims to identify affects in performance situation of the choral that seems to have a central role for members of the parish of Saint Pierre Julien Eymard, and understand and enhance a musical practice and its social context of integration hitherto little studied systematically.
... Far from reflecting artistic cowardice, there are at least two explanations for this apparently apolitical character of the Congolese Rumba. In the first explanation, Bob White (2008) suggests that, under the more than 30 years of Mobutu's authoritarian rule, artists in general, and musicians in particular, were forced into a situation where they had to flaunt their loyalty to the regime, yet were expected to self-censor in terms political views, or face severe consequences. The rewards for loyalty came in the form of access to the powers that be and to the regime's financial powerhouses. ...
The ESRC STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre carries out interdisciplinary global research uniting development studies with science and technology studies. Our pathways approach links theory, research methods and practice to highlight and open up the politics of sustainability. We focus on complex challenges like climate change, food systems, urbanisation and technology in which society and ecologies are entangled. Our work explores how to better understand these challenges and appreciate the range of potential responses to them. and South Asia. Our research projects, in many countries, engage with local problems and link them to wider concerns. Website: steps-centre.org Twitter: @stepscentre For more STEPS publications visit: steps-centre.org/publications This is one of a series of Working Papers from the STEPS Centre ISBN: 978-1-78118-793-7
... Dans la première explication, Bob White (2008) propose que, au cours plus de 30 ans de régime autoritaire de Mobutu, les artistes en général et les musiciens en particulier étaient contraints de faire étalage de leur loyauté envers le régime, mais devaient s'autocensurer en termes d'opinions politiques. Les récompenses pour la loyauté prenaient la forme d'un accès facile aux acteurs du pouvoir en place et aux sources financières du régime. ...
Résilience vernaculaire: Une approche analytique des pratiques sociales et des répertoires culturels de résilience à long terme en Côte d'Ivoire et en République
... To succeed in their chicanery, some African rulers dupe their people by pretending that they love them. Mobutu used to boohoo when addressing his people as the sign of loving them while it was nothing but crocodile tears (White, 2008). An ideal example can be drawn from recent remarks by Kenya's former president Uhuru Kenyatta notes that: ...
Africa has always blamed external colonisation for its Catch-22s such as violent ethnic conflicts for the struggle for resource control, perpetual exploitation, poverty, and general underdevelopment all tacked to its past, which is a fact, logical, and the right to pour out vials of ire based perpetual victimhood it has clung to, and maintained, and lost a golden chance of addressing another type of colonialism, specifically internal colonisation presided over by black traitors or black betrayers or blats or blabes.
Basically, internalised internal colonisation is but a mimesis of Africa’s nemesis, namely external colonisation as another major side of the jigsaw-cum-story all those supposed to either clinically address or take it on, have, by far, never done so for their perpetual peril. In addressing internal colonisation, this corpus explores and interrogates the narratives and nuances of the terms it uses. The untold story of Africa is about internal colonisation that has eluded many for many years up until now simply because it made Africans wrongly believe that it is only external colonisation their big and only enemy.
... While prominent literature concerning the music from the time of Authenticity exists (White 2008), its art and architecture are less well known. Key examples of built and material culture from the late 1960s and early 1970s are an iconic presence in Kinshasa today, yet they are not commonly referred to outside of the Congo. ...
Congo Style presents a postcolonial approach to discussing the visual culture of two now-notorious regimes: King Leopold II’s Congo Colony and the state sites of Mobutu Sese Seko’s totalitarian Zaïre. Readers are brought into the living remains of sites once made up of ambitious modernist architecture and art in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. From the total artworks of Art Nouveau to the aggrandizing sites of post-independence Kinshasa, Congo Style investigates the experiential qualities of man-made environments intended to entertain, delight, seduce, and impress. In her study of visual culture, Ruth Sacks sets out to reinstate the compelling wonder of nationalist architecture from Kinshasa’s post-independence era, such as the Tower of the Exchange (1974), Gécamines Tower (1977), and the artworks and exhibitions that accompanied them. While exploring post-independence nation-building, this book examines how the underlying ideology of Belgian Art Nouveau, a celebrated movement in Belgium, led to the dominating early colonial settler buildings of the ABC Hotels (circa 1908–13). Congo Style combines Sacks’s practice as a visual artist and her academic scholarship to provide an original study of early colonial and independence-era modernist sites in their African context.
... Cependant, en les qualifiant de « traditionnelles », ils ont eu tendance à renforcer l'idée de sociétés immuables (Lassibille, 2004). Balayant d'un revers de main l'idée de « prédispositions africaines naturelles », d'autres chercheurs vont ensuite insister sur le degré de formalisation des gestes techniques (Acogny, 1980 ;Tierrou, 2001) ou rythmiques (Schaeffner, 1951, Rouget, 1970, ou encore interroger la relation que la danse et la musique entretiennent avec le pouvoir (Ranger, 1975 ;White, 2008), la politique et l'économie (Lassibille, 2008 ;Andrieu, 2012Andrieu, -2017. ...
Le rire fait incontestablement partie des universaux humains : on ne connait pas de société qui ne rit, ni même d’individu incapable de rire. Je ne conteste pas cette idée, mais invite à penser que le rire ne peut se limiter à cette définition universaliste. Jusqu’à présent,les différents travaux consacrés à la question, ont mis en avant deux paradigmes presque antithétiques. La plupart des naturalistes ont décrit le rire comme un comportement inné et universel, strict résultat de l’hérédité, évinçant alors toute dimension sociale et culturelle. De leur côté, les chercheurs en sciences sociales ont envisagé le rire comme une pratique discursive ou institutionnalisée, négligeant cette fois la corporalité et la quotidienneté du rire. Ce travail entend précisément dépasser le débat de l’inné et de l’acquis, en postulant que le rire est universel, mais résulte d’un apprentissage social qui « domestique » son expression. Il convient alors de se demander quand et jusqu’où varient les formes du rire, quels sont sesmodes d’être sociaux ? En quoi le rire peut-il être une conduite qui requiert des codes, des rites, des acteurs, un « théâtre » ? Comment apprend-on à rire, c’est-à-dire par quel processus d’apprentissage se transmettent les manières de rire ? Est-il pertinent de parler de « savoir-rire », voire de « techniques du rire » ? Jusqu’à quel point la bouche et le corps qui rient sont domestiqués par la société et façonnés par le rieur riant ?Ce questionnement est au cœur de cette recherche qui s’est effectuée à partir d’uneenquête ethnographique dans les villages de la Kagera en Tanzanie, où le rire avait déjà fait parler de lui. En 1962, une « crise de fou rire » que les habitants ont appelé « la maladie du rire » (omumneepo) s’est répandue dans un internat de jeunes filles dans le village de Kashasha. Ce « fait-divers » constitue le point de départ de cette thèse, qui porte essentiellement sur les pratiques du rire dans ces villages tanzaniens. Admettre l’existence de rires anormaux ou maladifs, c’est accepter, en creux, l’existence de rires « normaux » et par là-même concevoir l’idée d’un apprentissage du rire. Le rire est une pratique sociale qui s’apprend, se transmet et s’incorpore, pour les habitants de la Kagera il est même un droit qui s’acquiert et que tout le monde ne possède pas. En fonction de son âge, de son genre, de son statut, mais aussi et surtout selon le contexte, chaque individu est censé choisir le rire adéquat parmi la panoplie de ceux qu’il possède dans son répertoire expressif. Certains rires sont inappropriés et il faut savoir les retenir sans quoi ils peuvent devenir irrespectueux, obscèneset même dangereux, comme l’ont été les rires de ces jeunes filles en 1962. D’autres répondent à une éthique tout autant qu’à une esthétique sociale et relèvent de l’obligation la plus parfaite. Toutefois, et malgré l’institution de ces « cadres-rire », les rieurs riant réinventent constamment de nouvelles manières de rire. Il faut se rendre dans les coulisses du théâtre social et pénétrer des espaces de l’entre-deux ou de l’entre-soi pour observer ces rires renégociés, créateurs et tributaires de sociabilités alternatives. Dans ces villages, il existe aussi des rieurs marginaux qui, pour leur part, n’ont pas besoin du groupe ou de la dissimulation pour se sentir légitimes de rire et d’agir à rebours des normes sociales. Le rire qu’ils expriment, toujours plus ou moins transgressif, bouleverse alors les normes et les structures et les remetmême en question. Ainsi, si le rire peut être garant de l’ordre social, il a aussi le pouvoir de le de le renverser. Cette thèse montre que le corps, les facteurs socio-culturels et les relations inter-individuelles sont en interaction permanente, de sorte que le rire doit s’appréhender comme un phénomène mouvant et fluctuant, en perpétuel devenir.
... In other words, the issue is not only the globalization of flows but also "the thickness of the global" (Dassetto 2006), its verticality. The (new) metropolises, as places where populations mingle and which are particularly conducive to exchanges, therefore consti tute a privileged field of investigation for this type of work (Puig 2009(Puig , 2010Larkin 2002Larkin , 2008Lemos 2008;Kiwan and Meinhof 2011;White 2008White , 2012. ...
This chapter provides a critical history of ethnomusicology of the creative process, from the first works on oral-tradition societies and their “instinct of variation” to the most recent reflections on transcultural music and digital audio production. It shows that the question of creative process extends throughout the history of ethnomusicology and reflects the vitality of debate within the discipline. The chapter includes references from different ethnomusicological currents or schools of thought, both English- and French-speaking, from countries of the North as well as countries of the South. All these references are situated within the major social science research paradigms that have nourished ethnomusicology throughout its history.
... Faisant pourtant les choux gras des médias, la scène de la musique populaire congolo-kinoise a très peu intéressé les chercheurs et universitaires, en dépit de quelques travaux grand public et académiques dont la plupart portent sur la biographie des auteurs (Lonoh 1969 ;Ewens 1994 ;Matoko 1999 ;Mpisi 2004 ;Gakosso 2002 ;Nimy 2007), le contenu des chansons (Tshonga 1984 ;Debhovampi 1997 ;Trapido 2010 ;Tsambu 2013 ;Manda 2011), l'histoire de cette musique (Lonoh 1969 ;Bemba 1984 ;Manda 1996 ;Stewart 2000), la violence du champ musical (Tsambu 2004(Tsambu , 2012 ou l'ethnographie politique et sociale de ce champ (White 2008). Tsambu : La scène musicale populaire kinoise à l'épreuve du genre La thématique du genre, quant à elle, a été abordée en pointillé, d'abord dans une sociographie sériée de chansons (Tshonga 1982(Tshonga ,1984, ensuite dans deux réflexions (Tsambu 2001(Tsambu , 2009) sur la présence de la femme en scène et hors scène. ...
Dans une perspective théorique genrée et transdisciplinaire (théories des champs et de l’intersectionnalité), le présent article discute de l’androcentrisme en tant qu’ensemble de rapports de pouvoir focalisés sur l’hégémonie masculine, tel qu’il se déploie sur la scène musicale populaire de Kinshasa. L’enquête a démontré qu’assujettie sexuellement, débauchable ou « bien d’échange », la femme (chanteuse, choriste, danseuse) a en outre été soumise à un faisceau d’oppressions professionnelles par l’homme à travers a) une division sexuée du travail qui l’a confinée à la tâche érotique de la danse ; b) son instrumentalisation comme un corps-machine, support de marketing des spectacles vivants et vidéo à la faveur de son sex-appeal et de ses chorégraphies lascives ; c) une rémunération aléatoire ; bref, une précarisation sociale, culturelle, psychologique amenuisant, plus que pour son homologue masculin, ses droits humains. Tout cela est à lire dans le contexte du champ (acteurs directs) ou du hors-champ (acteurs périphériques) de cette scène. Cependant, sur cette scène prise pour un reflet du fonctionnement et un facteur de changement de la société kinoise, la femme ne fait toujours pas figure de victime, étant stratégiquement tournée vers des intérêts et désirs d’ingratiation, de célébrité, de mieux-vivre (en Europe), ou d’inversion de la domination – sans toujours y parvenir. Léon Tsambu, Sociologue et enseignant-chercheur, Laboratoire congolais de musique et des cultures populaires, Université de Kinshasa. E-mail : leon.tsambu@gmail.com
... Na etnografia realizada coletamos inúmeros ocorridos, incontáveis observações, que podem ilustrar o falatório. No entanto, por uma necessidade óbvia de síntese, destacaremos apenas dois eventos para exemplificar o fenômeno e fazer nossa discussão.Compreendemos esses eventos como eventos comunicacionais, à medida em que nossa observação, seguindo o modelo das etnografias da comunicação(WHITE, 2008;COOREN, 2010) associados à etnometodologia(GARFINKEL, 1967), procura destacar a interação social, notadamente a interação social grupal, como a matéria prima que propicia a análise da cultura.Os dois eventos comunicacionais selecionados o foram porque possuem pontos de semelhança: ambos partem de um referencial fotográfico em suporte impresso, ambos referenciam personagem públicos bastante midiatizados e ambos são motivados pelo mesmo indivíduo. Acreditamos que a escolha desse recorte para ilustrar o falatório, no espaço estudado, nos ajuda melhor demarcar o fenômeno, mas é importante esclarecer que o falatório independe de suportes e referências midiáticas. ...
O artigo descreve uma pesquisa etnográfica realizada numa feira de Belém-PA. Observando os processos comunicacionais e culturais presentes nas interações sociais dessa feira, procura-se descrever as tipificações que conformam a intersubjetividade dos sujeitos sociais que a frequentam. Nesse percurso, descreve-se e discute-se essas tipificações como a forma social de uma quotidianidade banal e procura-se pensar nessas tipificações por meio da noção heideggeriana de falatório (Gerede), entendida enquanto processo comunicacional-cultural afeito à banalidade da vida quotidiana.
... Cela s'explique par la plus grande diversité des langues locales, principalement de souche non bantoue, dans le nord-est. L'actuel « bangala » du nord-est, toujours appelé bangala de nos jours (Abdel-Rahman El-Rasheed 1984 ;Edema 1994) Maristes 1917Maristes , 1925Maristes , 1937 Parmi les quatre linguas francas, le lingála a toujours bénéficié de privilèges coloniaux : il succéda à son ancêtre, le bangala d'avant 1900, comme langue utilisée par la Force Publique sur tout le territoire congolais, c'est-à-dire également dans les zones du swahili, du kikongo et du tshiluba (Polomé 1968 ;Bokamba 1976) ; c'était la langue principale dans la capitale Léopoldville, bénéficiant à ce titre des indexicalités multiplicatrices du nouveau métropolisme colonial ; et ce fut la langue principale dans laquelle fut produite la musique urbaine congolaise émergeant à Léopoldville dans les années 1940 et 1950 (Bemba 1984 ;Stewart 2000 ;White 2008 ;Trapido 2016). ...
... Clegg et al. (2006: 18) consider power in terms of control and resistance, both body and soul, 'soft coercion' meant to govern obligations, and 'productive resistance' engaged in political revolt. Some scholarly works have addressed the deployment of dance within the framework of African decolonisation and postcolonial identity (Apter, 2005;Castaldi, 2006;White, 2008;Djebbari, 2019;Kabir & Djebbari, 2019). Most of the works underscore African resistance to cultural obliteration, and acknowledge that dance was/is an important decolonising tool. ...
Dance in Cameroon is witnessing a fast-moving mutation entrenched in power relationships. Based on qualitative data analysis, we conceptualise legg's circuits-of-power framework to show how dance institutionalisation is a source and result of power. Hypothesising that power is central in dance practice, we argue that disciplinary machineries inherent in the power-circuit were practised during and after colonisation to institutionalise dance. Findings reveal that, during colonisation, dance institutionalisation was based on the annihilation and alteration of native dances through the development of Eurocentric cultural hegemonic traits. Nonetheless, dance played an important role in the cultural decolonizing process. Still, unfortunately, the dancing body remained subordinate to the (ex)-colonisers domination as professional dancers seek recognition from the West. After independence, the Cameroonian State used institutionalisation to control dance by creating the national ballet to meet national embodiment and unity needs. However, by introducing Western innovative body techniques amidst traditional dance practices, dance became a way to answer the demands of cultural globalization.
... Rumors abound about how successful artists have sacrificed relatives, band members, and sometimes even fans in exchange for popularity and material gain. Possessing charisme is the result of ties with invisible powers (White 2008). The same goes for ideas about innovation. ...
The tsetse fly is a pan-African insect that bites an infective forest animal and ingests blood filled with invisible parasites, which it carries and transmits into cattle and people as it bites them, leading to n'gana (animal trypanosomiasis) and sleeping sickness. This book examines how the presence of the tsetse fly turned the forests of Zimbabwe and southern Africa into an open laboratory where African knowledge formed the basis of colonial tsetse control policies. The book traces the pestiferous work that an indefatigable, mobile insect does through its movements, and the work done by humans to control it. The book restores the central role not just of African labor but of African intellect in the production of knowledge about the tsetse fly. It describes how European colonizers built on and beyond this knowledge toward destructive and toxic methods, including cutting down entire forests, forced “prophylactic” resettlement, massive destruction of wild animals, and extensive spraying of organochlorine pesticides. Throughout, the book uses African terms to describe the African experience, taking vernacular concepts as starting points in writing a narrative of ruzivo (knowledge) rather than viewing Africa through foreign keywords.
... From the 1990s onwards, the impact of poststructuralism as well as a growing interest in the embodied nature of social life fostered studies that showed how dance in Africa was often implicated in gender and power dynamics, and had a political dimension (Blakely 1993;Heath 1994;James 2000;Nannyonga-Tamusuza 2005;Castaldi 2006;Argenti 2007;Edmonson 2007;Andrieu 2008;White 2008;Gilman 2009;Djebbari 2011;Neveu-Kringelbach 2013;Covington-Ward 2016;Plancke 2017). Anthropologists working in hunter-gatherer societies have shown the crucial role played by music and dance in the maintenance of distinct identities and of an egalitarian ethos (Kisliuk 1998;Lewis 2013). ...
In this introduction to the special issue on dance in Africa and beyond, we review the anthropological study of dance in Africa since the 1920s and introduce the seven contributions, organized around the key themes of transformed identities (both contemporary and historical), decoloniality, new media, morality, and the problematic representations of African diasporic identities in contemporary Europe. With this special issue, we argue that the study of dance and music provides an important window into the myriad creative ways in which people in Africa and in the African diaspora deal with problematic situations, generate new artistic forms, engage with questions of ethics, and carve out spaces in which they experiment with novelty and reinvigorate their lives.
... These themes -dance as embodied memory and nostalgia, dance as challenge to linear temporality, dance as a collective social act -shape this special issue on dance and decolonisation in Africa. As editors, we drew inspiration from many sources: classic novels that weave music and dance into their evocations of community life, written on the eve or aftermath of decolonisation, for example Camara Laye's L'Enfant Noir (1953), Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (1958), Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's A Grain of Wheat (1967); a new generation which returns to those foundational moments through critical nostalgia -such as Tunisian filmmaker Moufida Tlatli's depiction of belly dance in The Silences of the Palace (Samt el qusur, 1994); singer-songwriter Paulo Flores's revival of the Angolan dance-music genre semba; and scholarly works that have illuminated such mobilisations of dance and music within the frame of African decolonisation and postcolonial identity formation (Apter 2005;Askew 2002;Castaldi 2006;Moorman 2008;Shain 2002Shain , 2009Turino 2000;White 2008). 2 During fieldwork in West Africa for the ERC-funded project, Modern Moves, we discovered those identity formation processes still reverberating within local scenes around social dance with Afro-diasporic roots. ...
... Probably not. It may well be that "musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast, to soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak" (Congreve 1697) but many in the Great Lakes region also painfully remember the killer songs of the Rwandan genocidaires (Li 2004) and dictator Mobutu Sese Seko's instrumental use of rumba music (White 2008). Music rarely stops bullets, as we came to realise when we had to cancel the first edition of our festival in August 2012 because the M23 rebel group was besieging and bombarding Goma. ...
... In Zaire, as Bob White notes, musicians who sing patrons' names in their performances or recordings "are using language to secure knots in relationships of reciprocity from which they have benefited and on which they will probably need to call on in the future" (2008,174). Naming others in songs provided these musicians a way to counteract increased financial insecurity brought on by the rise of cassette piracy in the 1980s and the end of state funding for music (White 2008). By naming others in songs, whether in Brazil, Zaire, Mexico or elsewhere, musicians seek to foster mutually dependent relationships between themselves, their patrons, and their publics. ...
During performances of cumbia sonidera, a Mexican style of music with roots in Colombia's northwest, sonideros (DJs) recite names of people and places over the music. Fans hand slips of paper, hold signs, or send text messages for the DJ to read. Speaking through sonideros’ voice, the public calls out to loved-ones via songs dubbed with dedications. Audiences send the recordings on CD or, increasingly, links to the Facebook Live stream of the performances to family members named in the dedications. Saludos (salutations) trace an auditory archive of relations, migration, and feelings of love and longing for people and places. I attune to the role of sound in constituting Mexican and Mexican-American lives through both established ethnographic approaches and more experimental forms of “doing anthropology in sound” [Feld, Steven, and Donald Brenneis. 2004. Doing Anthropology in Sound. American Ethnologist 31 (4): 461–474] – by curating and producing a compilation of border-crossing cumbia produced between Los Angeles and Mexico. How does the circulation of recorded sound – intensely layered music – provide ways for sensing, remembering, honoring, and conveying emotional messages across borders? I attend to how sonic technologies are creatively used to convey emotion, relations, and memory to produce co-presence across increasingly militarized borders.
... De plus, je m'inscris ici dans la lignée de chercheurs qui insistent sur l'importance d'étudier la performance sans se limiter à la seule dimension sonore, mais plutôt en prenant compte de tout aspect de la pratique vocale et/ou instrumentale relevant de la production de sons par un musicien lors de l'acte musical (Lacasse 2006), et comme « une série de modalités de production et de mise en communication [entre acteurs et récepteurs] qui contribue de façon significative à l'édification de la stylistique d'une pratique musicale » (Desroches 2008, 104). Enfin, une part active est accordée aux fidèles dans la performance, de même qu'aux textes des chansons qui sont considérés comme autant d'éléments imbriqués dans un espace ou un ensemble communicationnel que Bob W. White (2008) appelle la « performativité », terme emprunté de l'anglais performativity (Austin 1962 ;Searle 1979). J'ai cherché à souligner la pertinence de ces propositions en créant un nouveau modèle d'analyse de la performance musicale axé sur la relation entre production et réception dans le discours sur la performance : la « syntagmatique performancielle » (Grégoire 2016). ...
Cette proposition repose sur mes recherches de maîtrise situant la divergence, chez les Sérères noon du Sénégal, entre une pièce chantée (entendue) et sa partition (lorsqu’existante) dans un processus d’appropriation temporellement étendu du répertoire choral et menant au croisement des traditions orale et écrite. Cet article expose l’appropriation identitaire d’une pratique musicale occidentale en milieu catholique en un ensemble des processus et actions portés sur le répertoire par chacun des membres de la communauté pour une communication adéquate d’un répertoire d’une impressionnante envergure interculturelle. Je propose alors de placer le musicien au coeur de la mise en forme de la musique pour en mesurer son apport dans la construction même de la pièce musicale et ses multiples variations. Je démontre que cette pratique musicale s’inscrit dans un mouvement de communication d’une foi puissante par chacun des membres de la communauté, que la conduite esthétique de la chorale résulte des attentes de cette même communauté envers l’ensemble pour une bonne performance, la performance de la chorale renvoyant ainsi à « une série de modalités de production et de mises en communication qui contribue de façon significative à l’édification de la stylistique [de cette] pratique musicale » (Desroches 2008, 104).
... Alongside efforts to eradicate all signs of former colonial repression, which included the transformation of the country's name to Zaire, as well as the introduction of a new anthem, "La Zaïroise," Mobutu launched in 1971 a process known as Zairianization, perceived as essential for the sake of solidarity with African culture and traditions. As part of this process, Mobutu became aware of the immense 9 As part of the processes described above, Mobutu ordered a wide-scale renaming process in which he colorfully renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa interventions importance of popular music and the bustling industry which directs it, both locally and across the continent, and acted quickly to subordinate it to his authority (Brown 2010;White 2008). ...
This essay attempts to locate the music festival known as Zaire ’74 within a continuum of Pan-African festivals by reading it as an ‘idiosyncratic laboratory’ in relation to the agency of exiled South African jazz musician Hugh Masekela. Masekela was one of the producers of the 1974 event held in Kinshasa. Yet his expertise here draws on his prior participation in the foundational Monterey International Pop Festival (1967), which helped constitute rock music as the soundtrack of choice for a predominantly white American counter-culture. In Monterey, Masekela featured as a conduit for exoticizing tropes of “African ecstasy.” While the production of Zaire ’74 was largely based on Masekela’s experiences in Monterey, it was the representation of the African continent as a musical – cultural construct that rendered Masekela’s vision of Zaire ’74 into the junction between soul power, black power, anti-imperialism, Pan-Africanism, and Zairean nationalism. The agency of Masekela in both events draws attention to the multiple roles played by exiled South African cultural agents in the transnational circulation of texts, sounds, and images against the backdrop of Cold War divisions. Musical analysis of samples from this formative period in Masekela’s career locates Zaire ’74 as a pivotal moment of maturation in his transformation from an exiled African jazzman in America into a politically committed cultural producer who played a crucial role in the international explosion of the culturally and politically entangled musical genre known as Afropop.
Carried by tourism, trade, diplomacy, sport, music, the internet, English covers the world. However, each country of the world retains its languages for communication and trade. Even if English dominates the world, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) remains multilingual with French at the top of the pyramid as its official language. The linguistic landscape of DRC is a triglossic structure in which French, the official language, dominates. Below French are four “national” (in fact “regional”) languages, used geographically in their areas of influence. Finally, there are more than 100 “ethnic” languages which fulfill community and cultural needs. English fades well behind in this structure. However, it serves to communicate with the outside Anglophone world and to embellish music and the linguistic landscape. Academic English is an important academic subject throughout the university and English is a compulsory subject at secondary school.
This contribution focuses on Langila, a language practice or “speech style” that emerged in the first decade after the millenium in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa, characterized by lexical creativity and specific phonological manipulative strategies. I analyze Langila speakers’ use of global place names, fashionable brands, and names of institutions, and to some extent specific (manipulated) personal names as pseudo-onomastic references from an anthropological-linguistic perspective, understanding “games with names” ( Storch 2019 ) as a cultural practice that contributes to the novelty factor in specific ways of speaking in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa and in social media. It is crucial for the discussion of “labelling” and “branding” practices in contexts of cultural importance in African languages to consider why and how speakers use, manipulate, and recontextualize semiotic links to names of artefacts, places, and people – and how this changes the onomastic value of these named, unnamed, and renamed concepts in ludic interaction. The paper thus circles around two main research questions: How are “labels” (anthroponyms, toponyms) semantically and in terms of their referential and indexical use changed to creative lifestyle emblems and become part of the everyday lexicon? How are contexts of cultural importance named and (re)labelled by a speaker, drawing from “manipulated” repertoires that involve (partially homophonic) anthroponymic or toponymic references actually intended to mislead or to confuse the hearer? This contribution investigates the role of onomastic references that are used to denote and label central concepts in Langila.
Cet article contribue au regain d’intérêt autour de la personne de Patrice Lumumba, notamment son importance dans l’imaginaire global, son ubiquité et son iconicité à travers la peinture populaire congolaise. Il ne s’agit pas ici de revenir sur la trajectoire politique de Patrice Lumumba – un thème prolifique sur lequel un nombre considérable d’études sans cesse renouvelées, s’est déjà penché – mais d’examiner l’aura prophétique et christique qui a fini par envelopper Lumumba de façon posthume. Lumumba, et non Joseph Kasa-Vubu, hérite du manteau prophétique sacralisé de la tradition messianique kongo et devient, à travers le discours de l’imaginaire populaire, le dernier maillon dans la chaîne prophétique kongo, le prophète de l’indépendance. Cependant, cette consécration, à travers la concaténation du politique et du religieux, ne lui est conférée au Congo que sur le tard, alors que la figure de « Lumumba mort » revêt très tôt sur la scène internationale un caractère canonique inouï.
This article explores the nexus between self-making and genre-making in African popular music through the lens of Fújì music, an urban Yoruba popular music from Nigeria. The story of social agents in postcolonial African popular music is at the heart of this genre-making process. Drawing from interviews, archives, and participant observations, I explore the development of Fújì through the agency of Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, the acclaimed pioneer of the genre. Through his continuous search for ‘newness’, Ayinde Barrister launched Fújì as a prestige genre, a type of modernity from below, within the 1970s Lagos social and economic scenes. Ultimately, the interlocking story of Ayinde Barrister and Fújì provides insights into how genre-making in African popular music intertwines processes of self-making in postcolonial Africa.
Debates on the term “popular” in African popular music abound, but it undoubtedly constitutes a critical site for the articulation and interpretation of African social and political life. An important body of academic work has emerged that analyzes the life of musicians and breaks down the intricacies of production and the intertextualities underpinning the meanings of African songs. While questions of identity and influence are paramount, the music has contributed to individuals’ sense of self and ability to articulate quotidian life and challenge state‐ ‐driven inequalities. Individual artists like Miriam Makeba and Youssou Ndour have served as the continent's ambassadors and changed the social status of its musicians. The production and distribution of the music affirm globalization, which has brought a convergence of styles, concerns, performance modes, and sites. Meanwhile, the challenge of documenting the immense contribution of African musicians remains, despite growing attempts to exploit new media to make the archive of African popular music accessible.
This article describes the process of producing Gulu SoundTracks, a digital sonic ethnographic project accessible at gulusoundtracks.org, with four Ugandan music producers based in Gulu. The album comprises eight digital audio tracks that tell stories about Gulu musically through the compositional mixing of field soundscape recordings. Using field recordings as samples opened up sampling as a multimodal method for ethnographic storytelling which entails listening that is “vexed” (Weheliye 2005), archival, multiple, and generative. Pointing to insights from the project's creative process, the author explores sound praxis as a modality for amplifying fruitful connections between ethnographic and Afrodiasporic arts traditions. In conversation with others using sound methods in anthropology, ethnomusicology, and digital sound studies, this article stages a dialogue between sound‐based work, critical treatments of Black and Afrosonic cultural production, and experimental ethnography. Sampling as method centers ethnographic imagination and points to critical possibilities field recording holds for anthropological knowledge production. Este artículo describe el proceso de producir Gulu SoundsTracks, un proyecto etnográfico sónico digital accesible en gulusoundtracks.org, con cuatro productores de música de Uganda localizados en Gulu. El álbum consta de ocho pistas de audio digitales que cuentan historias acerca de Gulu musicalmente a través de la mezcla composicional de las grabaciones de sonidos de campo. El uso de grabaciones de campo como muestras abrió el muestreo como un método multimodal para la narración de historias etnográficas el cual implica escuchar lo que es “controvertido” (Weheliye 2005) perdurable, múltiple y generativo. Apuntando a entendimientos del proceso creativo del proyecto, el autor explora la práctica de sonidos como una modalidad para amplificar conexiones fructíferas entre la etnografía y las tradiciones artísticas afrodiaspóricas. En conversación con otros usando métodos de sonido en antropología, etnomusicología y estudios de sonido digital, este artículo organiza un diálogo entre trabajo basado en sonido, tratamientos críticos a la producción cultural negra y afrosónica, y la etnografía experimental. El muestreo como método centra la imaginación etnográfica y señala las posibilidades críticas que la grabación de campo sostiene para la producción de conocimiento antropológico. [sonido, etnografía, multimodal, urbano] Coc man tito yoo me yupu wer me Gulu SoundTracks manoge i gulusoundtracks.org, dok tye ki luyub wer angewn mabedo Gulu. Watye ki wer aboro kany matito lok ikom Gulu. Coc man tiyo ki wer magi me niang ngo matye ka time, tutwalle me niang kit ma Gulu kubbe kwede ki kabedo mapat‐pat. Pi man dong, wer magi atamo ni konyo nyutu yo mapat‐pat ma waromo tic kwede me niang ngo matimme I kabedo mapol. [dwan, lok ikom kaka ki dano magwi, multimodal, urban]
West African Popular Music is a book I wrote for the Textbook Program of CODESRIA in Dakar, Senegal between 2014 and 2016. In it I cover both Anglophone and Francophone West Africa and infact it was written as a textbook for West African schools and colleges - although of course it will also be of interest to students, scholars, musicians and artists from other parts of Africa - and indeed from around the globe. This texbook is divided into 29 chapters and starts with the origins of West African transcultural popular urban music and entertainment from the 19 century - into the 20th century and the era of independence - and up to the present-day forms of West African techno-pop such as Afro- hiphop. Afropop, Afro-dancehall and Afrobeats. However as the book was completed in 2016 it does not include the very latest developments. Moreover, although photo caption are included, this rough preliminary version of the book does not include photo illustrations. However, in the fully and professionally formatted version of the book that CODESRIA intends to publish in web form, numerous photos are included.
This paper examines the wardrobe of the first prime minister and president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, to show how he created a set of “suits” or “looks” to mirror his overlapping traditional, modern, pan-African, Ghanaian, and Socialist political identities. It expands research on dandy culture to indicate how an African sensibility, mixed with inspiration from Asia, provided a wider repertoire of looks for postcolonial dressers beyond strictly Western or traditional African options. The paper begins with an overview of early discourse in the Gold Coast Colony (now Ghana) on the pros and cons of wearing cloth wrappers to show Ghanaian elites’ longstanding ambivalence toward wearing unsewn garments. While Kwame Nkrumah became famous for intricate kente cloths draped like togas, he also invested in custom-made British suits. In addition, Kwame Nkrumah wore fluttering batakari tops of hand-woven cloth to rouse the country at independence. By the early 1960s, he transitioned to wearing dark long-sleeved suit jackets in a style that came to be known in Ghana as “Zhou Enlai.” This research on Nkrumah’s fashion legacy shows how a business “suit” can be more than just a Western-style garment. It also complicates discourses surrounding cultural appropriation and intellectual property rights in textiles.
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Cotonou, Benin, the essay explores historical and contemporary dynamics pertaining to the different ways in which salsa is creatively appropriated in Benin. The analysis of the specificities of Beninese salsa dialogues with the ever-growing body of literature interrogating the ability of the Black Atlantic heuristic to grasp South-South transatlantic cultural circulations. I thereby redefine the transatlantic affiliations that are perceptible through the beninisation of salsa as emanating instead from what I call the Creole Atlantic.
In Conakry, the capital city of the Republic of Guinea, dance ceremonies called sabars , derived from a Senegalese genre of the same name, have become extremely popular for wedding celebrations. Sabar's rise in Guinea coincided with the liberalization of the country's economy and the opening of national borders in the wake of state socialism (1958–84) – events that have produced profound uncertainty for average citizens. This article explores sabar as a practice that grapples affectively with the social and economic changes neoliberal reform has engendered within Guinea. Sabar ceremonies are characterized by instantiations of excess, including hypersexualized dancing, electric amplification and theatrical displays of opulence. By examining excess as an ‘emergent’ quality whose cultural value is undetermined, the article demonstrates how dancers participate in the active constitution and questioning of collective value in Conakry, and how embodiment is central to an anthropology of precarity.
This paper sheds light on an unsung part of Gabonese history: the construction of national performance and ‘spectacle’ culture. It is based on long-term ethnographic and historical research on Gabonese music and dance groups and on an analysis of two music and dance genres created during the one-party rule. While the first one (cultural animation groups) has represented a national unity project and a masculine dominance of the state in a period of ‘Renovation’, the second (the National Ballet) has used local initiation rituals on stage as emblems of the Nation in a period of heritage-making and the construction of cultural policies. This paper shows how, in the case of Gabon, dance and music ensembles have not only been used by the single party to produce ordinary consent; they were also employed by popular classes to assert their agency, despite the domination of the single party. It highlights how the micropolitics and negotiations of some have shaped local ‘traditions’ to become part of a ‘national culture’ in public performances. This unknown history of two national dance and music genres ultimately adds innovative elements to the existing literature on culture, politics, gender, and initiation societies in Gabon.
La danse à Kinshasa, en RDC occupe historiquement un terrain moral sur lequel différents acteurs – des missionnaires aux dirigeants politiques postcoloniaux – ont cherché à contrôler et à mettre en scène les danseurs. La danse des femmes en particulier est de plus en plus considérée moralement ambiguë, en particulier lorsque les femmes se produisent sur une scène publique. Même si la danse fait partie intégrante de la féminité, elle est néanmoins une voie risquée d’expression créative, essentiellement du fait des implications de la visibilité qui lui est associée. Cet article traite des occasions spécifiques où des danseuses invitent la critique, et j’avance que cela est lié à la façon dont la position sociale de la femme est négociée à travers ses performances publiques. Afin de comprendre certaines des anxiétés multivalentes exprimées concernant la moralité de la danse, cet article se penche sur différentes couches historiques qui ont formé les attitudes contemporaines à l’égard de la danse. Il considère comment de nouvelles formes de danse ont émergé dans le contexte historique de la Léopoldville coloniale, la position sociale postcoloniale des femmes zaïroise qui ont dansé pour la nation, et les danseuses professionnelles actuelles qui se produisent avec des groupes de musiques populaires.
Dance in Kinshasa, DRC has historically been a moral terrain on which different actors – from missionaries to postcolonial political leaders – have sought to control and showcase dancers. Women’s dancing in particular has become regarded as morally ambiguous, especially when women perform on a public stage. While dance is an integral part of femininity, it is nonetheless a fraught avenue of creative expression, largely due to the implications of its associated visibility. This paper addresses particular occasions in which dancing women invite criticism, which I argue is linked to the ways in which a woman’s social position is negotiated through her public performances. In attempts to understand some of the multivalent anxieties expressed over the morality of dance performance, this paper considers several historical layers that have shaped contemporary attitudes towards dance. It considers how new dance forms emerged in the historical context of colonial Léopoldville, the social position of postcolonial Zairian women who danced for the nation, as well as contemporary professional women dancers (danseuses) who perform with popular concert bands.
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Mali and Benin, the article looks at the economy of music video making and watching and their interaction with social dance practices. On the one hand, the article addresses the creation of new dance aesthetics in Mali through the development of music videos, while interrogating the creation of dance routines and their mediation on TV and via the Internet. On the other hand, it explores issues of remediation and intermediality in dance in light of the use of videos by Beninese salsa dancers. The article thus examines the interactions between dancing bodies and screens in dance venues in Cotonou. The notion of videochoreomorphosis is proposed as an analytical tool to appreciate how dance and dancing bodies are transformed by their interaction with the video format and with audio-visual techniques. This notion encompasses aesthetic and technical transformations as well as changes in the transmission, practice and consumption of dance through its video mediation. It also confronts assumed oppositions such as virtual/incarnate, screen/live, representation/embodiment, global/local. This study aims therefore at a theorization of the role of intermediality and remediation in social dance practices in Africa today.
This chapter investigates the phenomenon of emigrant Zairo-Congolese musicians in Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania and their attempts to integrate into these societies through a variety of strategies that overtly and covertly employ political elements. Remmy Ongala, Samba Mapangala, and the members of Orchestra Maquis all spent time in one of these countries and shaped their sound and messages in these settings, politics being a significant part of their work. While political communication studies focus on structures, institutions, and the media, it is the case that in numerous African contexts music is an integral part of political understanding and participation. Drawing upon the works of scholars such as Michael Urban, Mark Mattern, and Uche Onyebadi, this chapter combines varied fields such as ethnomusicology, political communication, and cultural studies to provide a close understanding of these musical emigrants as well as an exploration of the social trajectories in their work over the course of the last half century.
This article argues that nationalism and international diplomacy are embodied practices, as evidenced through the movement of international ballet dancers in South Africa. Under the apartheid regime, South African professional ballet received generous support from governmental sources. Since the transition to democracy, professional ballet companies have utilized creative strategies to court new sources of support including that of the ruling African National Congress. A key move in this campaign has been “ballet diplomacy” with Cuba—the transnational circulation of dancers, teachers, techniques, and performances in the name of the nation. Professional ballet's buy-in into South African nationalism locates dancers’ bodies in the maintenance and dissemination of state politics.
Elektroniczna muzyka wschodnioafrykańska jest dynamicznym zjawiskiem kształtującym się w przepływach nowoczesnych technologii, estetyk, znaczeń i praktyk. Przepływy te łączą lokalne grupy muzyków – w tym przypadku z Malawi i Tanzanii - z wirtualnymi przestrzeniami, wyobrażoną przeszłością czy boskością. Artykuł proponuje przy tym odwrócenie figury perspektywy na rzecz koncepcji głosów w większym stopniu oddającej dynamiczny charakter społecznego krążenia dźwięku. Przykładem takiej cyrkulacji jest zapośredniczona przez nagrania z rhumbą, salsą i calypso relacja z afro-amerykańskimi i afro-latynoskimi diasporami, czy późniejszy sukces medialny hip-hopu. Na przykładzie remiksowania i nagłaśniania, czyli praktyk związanych ze współczesnym wykonywaniem i odbiorem muzyki, dyskutowana jest relacja pomiędzy globalnymi przepływami a lokalnym wytwarzaniem i praktykowaniem tożsamości społecznych poprzez dźwięk.
The chapter provides an overview of historical studies on African masculinities published mainly in English since the 1990s by looking at the following themes: conceptual issues like multiple masculinities and hierarchies within them; Africa's flexible gender systems; the legacy of the African big man; the colonial remaking of African men through missionary societies, education, and wage labor; urban gangs; intersections of gender, age, and state; gendered development; postcolonial interventions and anxieties; and sexualities. Useful methodologies are discussed and suggestions offered for further research.
In the French-dominated multilingual D. R. Congo where Lingala music reigns supreme, it may seem unusual and unexpected to note the presence of English in lyrics where pervasive mixing of French in Lingala lyrics would be an unmarked phenomenon. This remarkable craze for English in Lingala lyrics in the 1970s and 1980s, by young musicians in a period where there was no obsession for, affiliation with, or inspiration from, the hip-hop movement which often carries the seed of (American) English, seems perplexing. It may assumedly symbolize, or project, values ranging from identity – imagined or real – to refusal, rebellion, or subversion and resistance. Better still, hybridization of this kind serves a variety of social, linguistic, or discourse functions. Would it signify a claim for an imagined or real hybrid identity? Was it a symbolic medium for expressing identity and solidarity? This type of phenomenon engenders a singular type of discourse embedded in the historical context of political, socio-economic and cultural changes of the time. The paper seeks to answers these key questions by reflecting on the music in which special crossing was prevalent at the time.
While remittances have come to play an important part in debates about migration and development, the link between religion, migration and transnational financial flows has yet to be understood in its full complexity. Drawing upon a multi-sited ethnography of a transnational African church, this article addresses this overlooked dimension of migrant transnationalism by analysing how religious donations converted into ‘sacred remittances’ produce a moral economy of religious life shaped by a politics of belongings at various scales. The article discusses the social meaning that diasporic actors attach to religious donations sent to the homeland (the Congo) and how this compares to the practice of sending remittances to family members. The article also argues that transnational circulation of sacralised money operates within a field of meanings and practices associated with moral expectations, entitlements and differentiated regimes of value. Sacred remittances, as ‘global money’, may generate a diversity of transnational linkages between donors and recipients but they remain embedded in landscapes of status and power.
This article focuses on the multidimensional sound event in order to articulate certain transnational vectors of political power, anti-imperialism and black power. It proceeds from Louise Bethlehem’s research methodology which recasts the anti-apartheid struggle as an apparatus of transnational cultural production through charting the movement of texts, sounds and images in a cold war setting. At the core of the paper is the analysis of the black music festival “Zaire ’74,” associated with the famous “Rumble in the Jungle” heavyweight boxing match. Taken together, the two events brought “black power” into contact with “soul power” in Mobutu’s Zaire when both configurations were at their peak. Analysing this historical junction with reference to the type of affect it produced, demonstrates something of the tensions which existed between its various audiences. Concurrently, attending to the sounds it generated helps to shed light on the intersection between anti-colonial ambition and African-American resistance. The article introduces the concept of the “transnational sound event” which uses voice and sound to translate moments of disconnection into arenas for hope and solidarity. The analysis nevertheless reckons with the dark underside of the music festival as well as the political and material conditions under which it was held.
Temporality in contemporary Kinshasa is of a very specific eschatological kind and takes its point of departure in the Bible, and more particularly in the Book of Revelation, which has become an omnipresent point of reference in Kinshasa's collective imagination. The lived-in time of everyday life in Kinshasa is projected against the canvas of the completion of everything, a completion which will be brought about by God. As such, the Book of Revelation is not only about doom and destruction, it is essentially also a book of hope. Yet the popular understanding of the Apocalypse very much centers on the omnipotent presence of evil. This article focuses on the impact of millennialism on the Congolese experience, in which daily reality is constantly translated into mythical and prophetic terms as apocalyptic interlude.
Sound has come to have a particular resonance in many disciplines over the past decade. Social theorists, historians, literary researchers, folklorists, and scholars in science and technology studies and visual, performative, and cultural studies provide a range of substantively rich accounts and epistemologically provocative models for how researchers can take sound seriously. This conversation explores general outlines of an anthropology of sound. Its main focus, however, is on the issues involved in using sound as a primary medium for ethnographic research.