Arab Noise and Ramadan Nights: Rai, Rap, and Franco-Maghrebi Identity

The Postcolonial Turn: Re-imagining anthropology and Africa

“…As the global dimension of modernity decomposes into specific cultural outcomes or 'modernities' (Gaonkar 2001), how to train the eye for the inverse, the local phenomenon of global significance? That question goes for all local forms of rap that have the politically assertive and multi-ethnic intentions lacking in the music genres anthropologists usually deal with (Gross et al 1996, on the comparison to North Africa's Rai). The question concerns Tanzanian artists in particular, as the rest of this paper seeks to demonstrate, because their streetwise approach tries to outwit the ruling logic of self-seeking predation, which to my knowledge no Western philosophy has been able to defeat.…”

Ummah in Zomba: Transnational Influences on Reformist Muslims in Malawi

“…The downfall of the USSR and the disappearance of the two major power structures (East and West) are seen by many authors as a turning point in the globalization process. 47 The flow of money, images, ideas, media and commodities intensified. One of my respondents whom I will call Ali claimed that the United States needed a new enemy to keep up their economic development which mainly depended on the firearms industry-and trade.…”

Introduction: Music and Migration

“…In other cases the diaspora has become a recognised and respected authority of musical innovation. For example, Paris is one of the most influential sites for the development of Algerian rai music and developments in Paris feed back into the Algerian scene (Gross et al 1996;Schade-Poulsen 1999). Attention to questions of cultural production, innovation and diffusion within transnational communities highlights the complexities of relationships between dispersed migrant groups in a way that is not immediately apparent from a political or economic perspective.…”