ABSTRACT

Lives in Music analyses interwoven patterns of mobility, change, and power in music and dance practices.

It challenges some commonly accepted conceptual tools that are ubiquitous in anthropology today, including cultural hybridity, transnational networks, and globalization. Based on seven “itineraries” that are the result of extensive ethnographic long-term field research efforts, the processes of geographic and social mobility, transformation, and power relative to music and dance practices are explored in different parts of the world. Seven writers provide life stories constructed through ethnographic techniques and life histories and supported by a deep knowledge of local customs.

part I|181 pages

Seven singular itineraries

chapter 1|27 pages

Olivier Araste

Ancestors, memory, and a career as a maloya musician 1

chapter 2|25 pages

From Tulear to France

Damily - a tsapiky musician from Madagascar

chapter 3|27 pages

Lori, Linda, and Andrea

The journeys of three French Louisiana music transplants

chapter 4|25 pages

The sense of belonging - or not - to a transnational network

Performers and promoters of Afro-Cuban music and dance in Veracruz, Mexico

chapter 5|23 pages

Ahmad Wahdan

Maestro among the Frenzied streets of Cairo 1

chapter 6|25 pages

From milonguero to “professor”

Inventing a trade

chapter 7|27 pages

Julien

A bass-player hits the road

part II|38 pages

From singulars to plural