基本説明
Based on extensive field research, it explores how Africa is produced, circulated, and consumed through performance.
Full Description
The "jali" - a member of a hereditary group of Mandinka professional performers - is a charismatic but contradictory figure. He is at once the repository of his people's history, the voice of contemporary political authority, the inspiration for African-American dreams of an African homeland and the chief entertainment for the burgeoning transnational tourist industry. Numerous journalists, scholars, politicians and culture aficionados have tried to pin him down. This book shows how the "jali's" talents at performance make him a genius at representation - the ideal figure to tell us about the "Africa" that the world imagines, which is always a thing of illusion, magic and contradiction. Africa often enters the global imagination through news accounts of ethnic war, famine and despotic political regimes. Those interested in countering such dystopic images - be they cultural nationalists in the African diaspora or connoisseurs of "global culture" - often found their representations of an emancipatory Africa on an enthusiasm for West African popular culture and performance arts. Based on extensive field research in The Gambia and focusing on the figure of the "jali", this book interro
Contents
OVERTURE Where and When I Enter vii INTRODUCTION Performing Africa 1 PART ONE Representations/Performances 29 CHAPTER ONE Music: Europe and Africa 33 CHAPTER TWO Performances 53 PART TWO Professional Dreams 73 CHAPTER THREE Curators of Tradition 81 CHAPTER FOUR Personalistic Economy 114 CHAPTER FIVE Interview Encounters: The Performance of Profession 134 PART THREE Culture as Commodity 163 CHAPTER SIX Travel Stories 167 CHAPTER SEVEN Tourists as Pilgrims 189 CODA 213 NOTES 217 BIBLIOGRAPHY 225 INDEX 237
