Abstract
Jeli music in its interweaving, melodic cross-rhythms, represents duniya—an Arabic term for the world in all its essence. Meanwhile, the continuity of the jeli indigenous education system, which instills human values such as respect, patience, generosity, courage, community, good listening, and speaking through music, is threatened by dominant, global culture. This chapter reviews the differences between the “global hierarchy of value” and local values, particularly with regards to money, time, and human relations. It makes a case that both the problem and the solution to the continuity of jeliya exist through its integration into global culture. Lastly, lessons in embodied research prove successful in deepening cross-cultural learning, and lead to a transformative of the anthropologist who takes an engaged role as mediator between two worlds.
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Notes
- 1.
Duniya and Famoro Dioubaté’s Kakande album Dununya is the same word with different spelling.
- 2.
I use “she” because I am extrapolating from my experience, but in Africa most balafon students are boys. Many singers, who have a similar experience, are girls.
- 3.
Similar to the method of nonviolent communication, NVC, pioneered by Marshal Rosenberg.
- 4.
Like many artistic systems, the skilled artist does not necessarily excel in the ethical behavior that accompanies the practice, but it is available to them. In Africa, jelis are judged according to their musical ability and their ethics. They go hand-in-hand.
- 5.
Lucy Durán (2007) relayed this description of the ngara as “faultless.”
- 6.
Jelis speak about jeliya in terms of a spiritual practice. Some Westerners, not understanding what “spiritual” means, do not like the term. Perhaps one can understand it by recalling when solutions to problems, or otherwise brilliant ideas, seem to come not when we ruminate on them, but when we forget, and the answer comes spontaneously. In my family, we use this skill when doing crossword puzzles. Or when the word is “on the tip of your tongue,” you forget about it and it will come. Where does the idea come from? In my culture, we underestimate the powers of the nonthinking mind.
- 7.
John Chernoff explained that African music is “aesthetic and ethical” (1979), a point that Alan Mirriam challenged, asking whether Chernoff was confusing his own spiritual quest with the reality of how Africans experience it. I argue here that Chernoff is correct and that it is due to his embodied practice in Ghanaian drumming. Merriam could not understand that from the outside perspective.
- 8.
For an ethnographic account of West Africans struggling to make a living in New York City, see Paul Stoller’s “Money has no smell.” 2002. University of Chicago Press.
- 9.
Again, see Paul Stoller’s “Money has no smell.”
Also, see statistics: From 2010–2018 sub-Saharan African immigration increased by 52%. “Sub-Saharan African Immigrants in the United States.” Migration Policy Institute, November 6, 2019. This follows a general trend that migration from Sub-Saharan Africa to Europe and the United States has been rising since 2010. (“At least a million Sub-Saharan Africans have moved to Europe since 2010” Pew Research Center, March 22, 2018).
- 10.
In desperation, some West Africans walk to Libya and attempt to board unstable boats for European shores. If they are not taken as slaves by Libyans, they may not survive the border crossing. Today, in Senegal, a relatively democratic and peaceful country compared with Guinea, the youth have taken to the streets to protest the government. “Anti-government protests rock Senegal,” March 27, 2021, BBC News, https://youtu.be/Bk8Lzhpot1c
- 11.
Thank you to my assistant who chooses not to be named.
- 12.
- 13.
In Buddhist philosophy we are trained to recognize the “basic goodness” in ourselves and in all people. It is similar to the Manding system of respect—a basic trust that all people know how to be upstanding and dignified.
- 14.
Note: It could have been different. There are cases in which African musicians take terrible advantage of Americans and Europeans. There are troubled people with compromised morality on both sides. But I do not believe it is the norm.
- 15.
This is not such an ancient practice. In the United States, some meditation centers use the Dana system to thank teachers for teaching the dharma, which comes freely. In Israel, the ultra-Orthodox are government-subsidized for their religious studies; they do not work or do military service.
- 16.
As an engaged anthropologist, I may use Participatory Action Research, as I have learned it from Davydd Greenwood, my mentor at Cornell in future endeavors with jelis.
- 17.
The song is posted on my websites, www.lisafeder.com and www.mandinggrooves.com with my translation of the full lyrics.
References
Bateson, G. (1979). Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (Vol. 255). New York: Bantam Books.
Durán, L. (2007). Ngaraya: Women and musical mastery in Mali. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 70(3), 569–602.
Herzfeld, M. (2004). The Body Impolitic. University of Chicago Press.
Stoller, P. (2002). Money Has No Smell. University of Chicago Press.
Stoller, P. (2009). The Power of the Between. University of Chicago Press.
Discography
Diouabté, Famoro Dundunya 2006. Jumbie Records, New York.
Dioubate, Missia Saran. Signodiouba, 2017. New York.
Dioubaté, Sékou. 2019. Paris.
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Feder, L. (2021). Duniya: Weaving Pasts and Futures. In: Jeliya at the Crossroads. Palgrave Studies in Literary Anthropology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83059-5_12
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