Home Sweet Home: Junkanoo as National Discourse in the Bahamas

Rommen, Timothy

doi:10.2307/779275

Cited by 35 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 13 publications

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“…Lyrical engagement with the themes of history, heritage, and morality in a stylized, genre‐specific format makes these songs the site of both traditional discourse and discourse about tradition. In the context of Bahamian music, Timothy Rommen argues that “ junkanoo offers a very specific image of the nation, one that is timeless and mythical, spatially bounded, and embodied in community performance” (1999, 78). I propose that the collection of wrestling songs studied here is, in a similar way, a performative embodiment of a modern state's effort to formulate its national identity through a mythical reimagining of its history.…”

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Sunu Coosan: Creating “our tradition” in Senegalese wrestling songs

Brody

2023

J Linguistic Anthropol

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This article explores the term “sunu coosan” as a Senegalese trope of self‐articulation and as a semiotic strategy in contemporary discourses surrounding nationhood. The term, meaning "our tradition" in Wolof, is used by professionals as well as lay people in their promotion of the national sport, Làmb wrestling. By examining this phrase within the broad repertoire of Senegalese wrestling songs, I show that the musical commentary performed in the sport of Làmb situates it within a narrative of traditional continuity, subsequently producing a modern tradition for the consumption of the Senegalese nation. I argue that this collection of songs is a performative embodiment of a modern state's struggle to form its national identity. In Senegal's national wrestling arenas, ongoing lyrical engagement with the themes of history, heritage, and morality in genre‐specific, stylized formats, makes these songs the site of both ‘traditional discourse’ and a ‘discourse about tradition’. In this article, I explore three central features of Làmb songs: the use of poetic personas; "out of time narration"; and the recitation of praise poetry. By implementing these stylistic techniques inside and outside of the arena, local musicians continually create a meta‐discourse about the meaning of tradition.

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Sunu Coosan: Creating “our tradition” in Senegalese wrestling songs

Brody

2023

J Linguistic Anthropol

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Caribbean Literature in Transition, 1800–1920

Donnell¹,

O’Callaghan²,

Watson³

2020

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This volume examines what Caribbean literature looked like before 1920 by surveying the print culture of the period. The emphasis is on narrative, including an enormous range of genres, in varying venues, and in multiple languages of the Caribbean. Essays examine lesser-known authors and writing previously marginalized as nonliterary: popular writing in newspapers and pamphlets; fiction and poetry such as romances, sentimental novels, and ballads; non-elite memoirs and letters, such as the narratives of the enslaved or the working classes, especially women. Many contributions are comparative, multilingual, and regional. Some infer the cultural presence of subaltern groups within the texts of the dominant classes. Almost all of the chapters move easily between time periods, linking texts, writers, and literary movements in ways that expand traditional notions of literary influence and canon formation. Using literary, cultural, and historical analyses, this book provides a complete re-examination of early Caribbean literature.

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