Performing the Nation
Swahili Music and Cultural Politics in Tanzania
9780226029801
9780226029818
Performing the Nation
Swahili Music and Cultural Politics in Tanzania
Since its founding in 1964, the United Republic of Tanzania has used music, dance, and other cultural productions as ways of imagining and legitimizing the new nation. Focusing on the politics surrounding Swahili musical performance, Kelly Askew demonstrates the crucial role of popular culture in Tanzania’s colonial and postcolonial history.
As Askew shows, the genres of ngoma (traditional dance), dansi (urban jazz), and taarab (sung Swahili poetry) have played prominent parts in official articulations of "Tanzanian National Culture" over the years. Drawing on over a decade of research, including extensive experience as a taarab and dansi performer, Askew explores the intimate relations among musical practice, political ideology, and economic change. She reveals the processes and agents involved in the creation of Tanzania’s national culture, from government elites to local musicians, poets, wedding participants, and traffic police. Throughout, Askew focuses on performance itself—musical and otherwise—as key to understanding both nation-building and interpersonal power dynamics.
As Askew shows, the genres of ngoma (traditional dance), dansi (urban jazz), and taarab (sung Swahili poetry) have played prominent parts in official articulations of "Tanzanian National Culture" over the years. Drawing on over a decade of research, including extensive experience as a taarab and dansi performer, Askew explores the intimate relations among musical practice, political ideology, and economic change. She reveals the processes and agents involved in the creation of Tanzania’s national culture, from government elites to local musicians, poets, wedding participants, and traffic police. Throughout, Askew focuses on performance itself—musical and otherwise—as key to understanding both nation-building and interpersonal power dynamics.
392 pages | 22 halftones, 5 maps, 4 line drawings, 25 tables, 1 CD | 6 x 9 | © 2002
Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology
Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology
History: African History
Music: Ethnomusicology
Reviews
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
List of Common Abbreviations
1. Arts of Governance
2. Tanga, Tanganyika, Tanzania
3. Of Ginger Ale and Orange Soda
4. Weighty Measures, Significant Glances: Taarab Performance and the Constitution of Social Relations
5. Cultural Revolution in Tanzania?
6. Competing Agendas: The Production of Tanzanian National Culture
7. Of Mwanyas and Multipartyism: Taarab Performance and the Tanzanian State
8. Conclusion: Cultural Policy by and for the People
Appendix A: Song Texts and Translations
Appendix B: Poem from Tanga Technical School
Appendix C: Notes on the Accompanying CD
Notes
Glossary of Swahili Terms
References
Discography
Song Index
General Index
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
List of Common Abbreviations
1. Arts of Governance
2. Tanga, Tanganyika, Tanzania
3. Of Ginger Ale and Orange Soda
4. Weighty Measures, Significant Glances: Taarab Performance and the Constitution of Social Relations
5. Cultural Revolution in Tanzania?
6. Competing Agendas: The Production of Tanzanian National Culture
7. Of Mwanyas and Multipartyism: Taarab Performance and the Tanzanian State
8. Conclusion: Cultural Policy by and for the People
Appendix A: Song Texts and Translations
Appendix B: Poem from Tanga Technical School
Appendix C: Notes on the Accompanying CD
Notes
Glossary of Swahili Terms
References
Discography
Song Index
General Index
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