ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses musicking among the Venda, looking at how it has produced “structures of feeling” to sustain a sense of community. The chapter begins by evaluating John Blacking’s ethnographic material in relation to Arjun Appadurai’s conception of the production of locality. In the decades following Blacking’s research, however, Venda society and culture underwent considerable change and upheaval, seriously challenging the traditional structures of feeling Blacking identified. Reily looks at how Venda musical practices have adapted to these changes, reconfiguring the structures of feeling they articulate in the efforts of their performers to produce a viable contemporary Venda locality.
