Hearing Maskanda: Musical Epistemologies in South Africa

Hearing Maskanda explores how South African musicians use music to understand their world, challenging colonialist notions of knowledge and revealing the performative and creative dimensions of academic epistemic approaches.

Format: Hardback
Length: 280 pages
Publication date: 10 February 2022
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Hearing Maskanda delves into the profound ways in which individuals in South Africa navigate their world by engaging with and experiencing the music of Maskanda. This captivating genre emerged in response to the harrowing experiences of forced labor migration in the early 20th century, and it continues to transcend diverse cultural and musical realms. Maskanda musicians utilize a unique blend of musical textures, vocal styles, and idioms to reclaim and revitalize ideas, (hi)stories, norms, speech, and beliefs that have been uprooted over centuries of colonial and apartheid rule. Through an autoethnographic approach, Titus explores her journey of understanding and participation in Maskanda, highlighting instances where her knowledge formation intersected, bridged, or even invaded the experiences of other Maskanda participants.

This captivating book not only showcases the epistemic significance of music and aurality but also emphasizes the performative and creative dimensions of academic epistemic approaches such as ethnography, historiography, and music analysis. By doing so, it uncovers the colonialist underpinnings of knowledge formation and challenges globally normative modes of thinking and research. Through its rich narratives and insightful analysis, Hearing Maskanda offers a profound exploration of the ways in which music and culture shape our understanding of the world, challenging us to reimagine our perspectives and engage in more inclusive and transformative forms of knowledge production.

Weight: 540g
Dimension: 160 x 237 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781501377761