Abstract
The conspicuous exchange of money is an important part of many musical performances in The Gambia. In neighbourhood events, small denomination bills are passed from hand to hand, waved in the air, placed inside instruments, pinned to clothing, and collected in buckets. In contemporary Gambia, these highly visible practices of musical patronage and monetary exchange take place alongside dramatic social and economic change. Ongoing political and economic insecurity has threatened livelihoods and strained systems of social support and care. Drawing on 17 months of ethnographic research (2009; 2012-2013), this presentation examines Gambian women’s creative responses to changing economic conditions in contemporary Gambia. I use musical performance as a lens through which to understand intersections between global economic ideologies and local systems of monetary exchange grounded in relations of reciprocity. I show that, in the context of neoliberal economic reforms and diminishing social services, female performers have been obliged to adapt and intensify their labor practices in order to survive. This project brings ethnomusicological analysis of musical performance practices into conversation with scholarship on West African economic systems and social transformation (e.g. Bledsoe 1980, Kea 2013). I show that female performers employ song texts, social interactions in performance, and changing musical labor practices, in order to assert their continued relevance in contemporary urban Gambia.
Bio
Dr Bonnie McConnell is a lecturer in ethnomusicology at the ANU School of Music. She received her PhD from the University of Washington (Seattle) in 2015 with a dissertation titled Singing the Unsayable: Female Performers and Global Health in The Gambia. Bonnie’s research examines music in relation to issues of gender, health, and social change. Her research has been supported by fellowships from the Fulbright-Hays Program and the American Association of University Women. Bonnie has published in Social Science and Medicine, Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, and the Sage Enyclopedia of Music and Culture.
S2 2016 Series Speakers
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Date Speaker
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Jul 27 Jane Ferguson
Aug 3 Alison Witchard
Aug 10 Hans Baer
Aug 17 Simone Dennis
Aug 24 Debra McDougall
Aug 26 Michael Hertzfeld
Aug 31 Robbie Peters
Sep 21 Zazie Bowen
Oct 5 Jennifer Alexander and Shun Deng Fam
Oct 12 Bonnie McConnell
Oct 19 Francesca Merlan
Oct 26 Avail
Nov 2 Heidi Sinevaara-Niskanen
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