South African Journal Of Musicology

The present Reader is a selection of texts on South African music which are chosen not only for their importance or the frequency of citations, but with the express purpose of providing the reader with a deep understanding of the music itself. Consequently, there are readings that are chosen because they have been influential, but there are also many which, though published, have not enjoyed very wide circulation. There are those which are of obvious historic interest, and others which speak to contemporary issues. Among other things, the volume provides an excellent sense of the varying ideologies and approaches that determine the relationship between author and subject. The reader is indispensable to scholars and enthusiasts of South African music and it is of great interest to ethnomusicologists more generally. It is also an excellent resource for those who do not have immediate access to harder-to-find articles, and is perhaps most vital to those who are looking to find a way into the world of South African music.

Focus: Music of South Africa provides an in-depth look at the full spectrum of South African music, a musical culture that epitomizes the enormous ethnic, religious, linguistic, class, and gender diversity of the nation itself. Drawing on extensive field and archival research, as well as her own personal experiences, noted ethnomusicologist and South African native Carol A. Muller looks at how South Africans have used music to express a sense of place in South Africa, on the African continent, and around the world. Part One, Creating Connections, provides introductory materials for the study of South African Music. Part Two, Musical Migrations, moves to a more focused overview of significant musical styles in twentieth-century South Africa -- particularly those known through world circuits. Part Three, Focusing In, takes the reader into the heart of two musical cultures with case studies on South African jazz and the music of the Zulu-language followers of Isaiah Shembe. The accompanying downloadable resources offer vivid examples of traditional, popular, and classical South African musical styles.

"Due to significant political and social changes over the last decade in their countries and worldwide, many scholars in the Nordic nations and in Southern Africa have been researching on 'music and identity' - an area with a paucity of literature. It is our hope that this book will be beneficial to scholars interested in the field of music and identity. This volume is the result of the Swedish South African Research Network (SSARN) project, funded from 2004-2006 by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa, under the theme 'Music and Identity'. SSARN was founded by Stig-Magnus Thorsén of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, in 2002 when he invited Nordic and Southern African scholars to participate in a research group focusing broadly on the topic 'Music and Identity'"--Publisher's website.

For several centuries Cape Town has accommodated a great variety of musical genres which have usually been associated with specific population groups living in and around the city. Musical styles and genres produced in Cape Town have therefore been assigned an "identity" which is first and foremost social. This volume tries to question the relationship established between musical styles and genres, and social - in this case pseudo-racial - identities. In Sounding the Cape, Denis-Constant Martin recomposes and examines through the theoretical prism of creolisation the history of music in Cape Town, deploying analytical tools borrowed from the most recent studies of identity configurations. He demonstrates that musical creation in the Mother City, and in South Africa, has always been nurtured by contacts, exchanges and innovations whatever the efforts made by racist powers to separate and divide people according to their origin. Musicians interviewed at the dawn of the 21st century confirm that mixture and blending characterise all Cape Town's musics. They also emphasise the importance of a rhythmic pattern particular to Cape Town, the ghoema beat, whose origins are obviously mixed. The study of music demonstrates that the history of Cape Town, and of South Africa as a whole, undeniably fostered creole societies. Yet, twenty years after the collapse of apartheid, these societies are still divided along lines that combine economic factors and "racial" categorisations. Martin concludes that, were music given a greater importance in educational and cultural policies, it could contribute to fighting these divisions and promote the notion of a nation that, in spite of the violence of racism and apartheid, has managed to invent a unique common culture.

DIVAn ethnography of the recording of Mbaqanga music, that examines its relation to issues of identity, South African politics, and global political economy./div

This book offers an original anthropological approach to the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, demonstrating why AIDS interventions in the former homeland of Venda have failed - and possibly even been counterproductive. It does so through a series of ethnographic encounters, from kings to condoms, which expose the ways in which biomedical understanding of the virus have been rejected by - and incorporated into - local understandings of health, illness, sex and death. Through the songs of female initiation, AIDS education and wandering minstrels, the book argues that music is central to understanding how AIDS interventions operate. This book elucidates a hidden world of meaning in which people sing about what they cannot talk about, where educators are blamed for spreading the virus, and in which condoms are often thought to cause AIDS. The policy implications are clear: African worldviews must be taken seriously if AIDS interventions in Africa are to become successful.