ABSTRACT
Female performers’ involvement in health promotion in contemporary Gambia draws on deeply rooted practices of “public healing” that go beyond physical illness to address social relations. Female performers’ transformative labour responds to deteriorating political and economic conditions in contemporary Gambia. If other women have fertility challenges, they may go to the kanyeleng for assistance without taking on a kanyeleng identity. Kanyeleng groups in western Gambia do not have these restrictions on membership. In the Gambian context, music performance represents an important form of public healing through which women negotiate the politics of health promotion and foreground aspects of health that are neglected in global health discourse and programming. The strengths-based approach foregrounds questions of power and value in relation to diverse epistemological and ontological frameworks of music and health. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
