Introduction : dance in Africa and beyond : creativity and identity in a globalized world

In this introduction to the special issue on dance in Africa and beyond, we review the anthropological study of dance in Africa since the 1920s and introduce the seven contributions, organized around the key themes of transformed identities (both contemporary and historical), decoloniality, new media, morality, and the problematic representations of African diasporic identities in contemporary Europe. With this special issue, we argue that the study of dance and music provides an important window into the myriad creative ways in which people in Africa and in the African diaspora deal with problematic situations, generate new artistic forms, engage with questions of ethics, and carve out spaces in which they experiment with novelty and reinvigorate their lives

Shock mobilities during moments of acute uncertainty

The COVID-19 pandemic and interventions addressing it raise important questions about human mobility that have geopolitical implications. This forum uses mobility and immobility during the pandemic as lenses onto the ways that routinised state power reacts to acute uncertainties, as well as how these reactions impact politics and societies. Specifically, we propose the concept of “shock mobility” as migratory routines radically reconfigured: emergency flights from epicentres, mass repatriations, lockdowns, quarantines. Patterns of shock mobility and immobility are not new categories of movement, but rather are significant alterations to the timing, duration, intensity, and relations among existing movements. Many of these alterations have been induced by governments’ reactions to the pandemic in both migrant-sending and receiving contexts, which can be especially consequential for migrants in and from the Global South. Our interventions explore these processes by highlighting experiences of Afghans and Kurds along Iran’s borders, Western Africans in Europe, Filipino workers, irregular Bangladeshis in Qatar, Central Americans travelling northwards via Mexico, and rural-urban migrants in India. In total, we argue that tracing shocks’ dynamics in a comparative manner provides an analytical means for assessing the long-term implications of the pandemic, building theories about how and why any particular post-crisis world emerges as it does, and paving the way for future empirical work

Encircling the dance

This thesis looks at the social significance of dance in Dakar, Senegal, both as an everyday practice and as a performing art. The boundaries commonly drawn between stage and mundane performance are shown to be irrelevant, as people circulate between performance spaces and dance forms. The dance itself is described as an elusive and ever-changing way of constructing identity, which is renewed every time it is performed. Most importantly, this thesis introduces dance as a vehicle of social mobility in its multiple dimensions, as an instrument in the politics of ethnicity in Senegal, and as a site of negotiation of gender relations. The complex interplay between the agency of local dancers and global performing circuits is also examined. Transformations in social status of performers are traced through time, space and across three genres of performance: the sabar, which is central in what I call "women's dances", folkloric performance, and recent choreographic experiments, lumped under the misleading label of "contemporary dance". The sabar and women's dance events are examined both as the local movement style that informs some of the choreographic work displayed on stage, and as a central space in which alternative gender relations are experimented with. I suggest that urban dance events have become increasingly dominated by women, for whom the dance is a convenient way of excluding men from their sociality, or including them on their own terms. Women are thus able to retain the control of important aspects of social life (the socialization of young girls, marriage negotiations, exchanging secrets on how to "tie" a husband), engage in trade and coach each other into small-scale business. Alongside the celebration of female solidarity, dance events are also moments of intense female competition. This is achieved through fashion, sexually explicit dancing and elaborate manipulation of the body. I argue that in a depressed economic climate which has turned to the disadvantage of most men, women are discreetly using their favourite form of sociality - the dance to make advances into the socio-economic domain. The argument on the performer's status through time takes the pre-colonial status stratification, particularly the figure of the Griot-performer, as a starting point. I suggest that the international career opportunities generated by the development of the folkloric genre from the 1960s onwards have helped modify the perception of the performer, albeit on a moderate scale. Further improvement has recently been achieved with the emergence of "contemporary dance". This is because the most successful performers within this experimental genre have benefited from the opportunity to promote themselves as individual artists. Moreover, when on tour abroad they are usually paid more and perform in more prestigious theatres than they do with folkloric performance, which often remains confined to "African festivals" and tourist resorts. In Senegal, they engage in collaborative work with visiting artists from Europe, North America or Japan. By contrast with the elitist character of the genre in its early days, in the 1970s, "contemporary" Senegalese dance is gradually becoming popularized, as people promote themselves as artists with a social consciousness. But the thesis also emphasizes that social mobility is not equally available to all, and that success, far from being a linear process, also contains the possibility of its own downfall: touring abroad may lose much of its appeal once people realize that they are being exploited. For performers who experiment with "contemporary" forms, social recognition can easily turn into accusations of doing "White people's stuff". This may partly explain why these performers are so keen to make their "local" grounding explicit, and why they nurture a fascination with "tradition". In a broader sense, this study also highlights the complexities of globalization processes in performance. It hints at the risks of the forms of globalization that reinforce power imbalances. Indeed, the renewed interest in the "contemporary" arts of Africa may be seen as part of a more general movement towards exploiting the creativity of African cultures. I examine people's ambivalent attitudes towards this, and argue that people perceive their own lives, as well as their status in the wider world, as deeply entangled with the representations of Africa which are projected onto the worldwide stage.</p

Encircling the dance

This thesis looks at the social significance of dance in Dakar, Senegal, both as an everyday practice and as a performing art. The boundaries commonly drawn between stage and mundane performance are shown to be irrelevant, as people circulate between performance spaces and dance forms. The dance itself is described as an elusive and ever-changing way of constructing identity, which is renewed every time it is performed. Most importantly, this thesis introduces dance as a vehicle of social mobility in its multiple dimensions, as an instrument in the politics of ethnicity in Senegal, and as a site of negotiation of gender relations. The complex interplay between the agency of local dancers and global performing circuits is also examined. Transformations in social status of performers are traced through time, space and across three genres of performance: the sabar, which is central in what I call "women's dances", folkloric performance, and recent choreographic experiments, lumped under the misleading label of "contemporary dance". The sabar and women's dance events are examined both as the local movement style that informs some of the choreographic work displayed on stage, and as a central space in which alternative gender relations are experimented with. I suggest that urban dance events have become increasingly dominated by women, for whom the dance is a convenient way of excluding men from their sociality, or including them on their own terms. Women are thus able to retain the control of important aspects of social life (the socialization of young girls, marriage negotiations, exchanging secrets on how to "tie" a husband), engage in trade and coach each other into small-scale business. Alongside the celebration of female solidarity, dance events are also moments of intense female competition. This is achieved through fashion, sexually explicit dancing and elaborate manipulation of the body. I argue that in a depressed economic climate which has turned to the disadvantage of most men, women are discreetly using their favourite form of sociality - the dance to make advances into the socio-economic domain. The argument on the performer's status through time takes the pre-colonial status stratification, particularly the figure of the Griot-performer, as a starting point. I suggest that the international career opportunities generated by the development of the folkloric genre from the 1960s onwards have helped modify the perception of the performer, albeit on a moderate scale. Further improvement has recently been achieved with the emergence of "contemporary dance". This is because the most successful performers within this experimental genre have benefited from the opportunity to promote themselves as individual artists. Moreover, when on tour abroad they are usually paid more and perform in more prestigious theatres than they do with folkloric performance, which often remains confined to "African festivals" and tourist resorts. In Senegal, they engage in collaborative work with visiting artists from Europe, North America or Japan. By contrast with the elitist character of the genre in its early days, in the 1970s, "contemporary" Senegalese dance is gradually becoming popularized, as people promote themselves as artists with a social consciousness. But the thesis also emphasizes that social mobility is not equally available to all, and that success, far from being a linear process, also contains the possibility of its own downfall: touring abroad may lose much of its appeal once people realize that they are being exploited. For performers who experiment with "contemporary" forms, social recognition can easily turn into accusations of doing "White people's stuff". This may partly explain why these performers are so keen to make their "local" grounding explicit, and why they nurture a fascination with "tradition". In a broader sense, this study also highlights the complexities of globalization processes in performance. It hints at the risks of the forms of globalization that reinforce power imbalances. Indeed, the renewed interest in the "contemporary" arts of Africa may be seen as part of a more general movement towards exploiting the creativity of African cultures. I examine people's ambivalent attitudes towards this, and argue that people perceive their own lives, as well as their status in the wider world, as deeply entangled with the representations of Africa which are projected onto the worldwide stage.</p

Cohabitation and convivencia: comparing conviviality in Casamance and Catalonia

This thesis explores conviviality, a set of processes surrounding everyday living with difference. Based on 18 months of fieldwork (2007-2010) equally split between Casamance, Senegal, and Catalonia, Spain, the comparison takes the transnational lives of Casamançais and their embeddedness in both local fields into account. Locally, Casamançais often spoke of cohabitation (French) and convivencia (Castilian). Exploring discourses as well as practices related to encounters with difference and everyday socialising, this thesis addresses three questions: (1) How do migrants who come from a context of religious and ethnic diversity manage to make their way within new social contexts of cultural diversity? (2) How do their pre-migration experiences of diversity affect the ways in which they deal with the changing configurations of diversity that they encounter in Europe? (3) How do ways of living together with difference change over time in both sending and receiving contexts due to migration and other concurrent societal transformations? In four ethnographic chapters, I firstly explore everyday neighbourhood encounters and the centrality of multilingual greeting and temporary gatherings in open spaces for conviviality. A second chapter focuses on cultural and religious festivities and argues that, apart from the political recognition of diversity, the local residents’ sensuous experiences of difference are a crucial dimension of conviviality. Addressing challenges to conviviality, the third chapter engages with the processes of social closure, isolation and homogenisation which reveal alternative ways of living with difference. The fourth ethnographic chapter puts migration-related inequalities centre-stage, showing how conviviality also involves subtle forms of inequality. Analytically, this thesis suggests that conviviality is not a static conception of sociality, but one that is in-process. I find that socio-cultural differences are permanently negotiated, that ways of dealing with difference are translated between the old and new contexts of diversity, and that discourses and practices of living with difference are continuously (re)produced in everyday interactions. Casamançais perspectives reveal ways of maintaining minimal sociality among local residents who remain different.This thesis is not currently available in ORA

Relative distance: practices of relatedness among transnational Kenyan families

In this thesis I examine familial dynamics and relations between Kenyan migrants in London and their non-migrant kin remaining in Kenya. Two transnational family configurations predominate: younger migrants and their non-migrant parents and siblings, and older transnational couples (migrant wives and non-migrant husbands). If migration is understood as a morally-laden social process, then how migrant and non-migrant kin engage with the distance(s) between them become the grounds on which what it means to be related is expressed and negotiated. Distance emerges not only as geographic and physical, but also as socially generated by the actions and inactions of kin. I argue that the emplacement of kin in different contexts post-migration, particularly younger migrants within a nascent Pentecostal community in London, mediates transnational kin relations. The thesis challenges a predominant strand of research on transnational families, which contends that migration disrupts kin relations and contributes to the commodification of love and care. Moreover, the focus on transnational Kenyan families fills a gap in African diaspora research that has largely focused on migrants from West Africa and issues of identity, diaspora politics, and development, while also addressing themes in African anthropology, such as, intergenerational reciprocity, social reproduction, and change.This thesis is not currently available in ORA