Hearing Maskanda

Maskanda, the Zulu pronunciation of the Afrikaans word musikant (musician), emerged in the early 20th century as a response to the experience of forced labour migration. Hundreds of thousands of people were coerced to change their rural existence for work in cities and mines, but since black people were not allowed to settle in urban areas, they moved back and forth between their villages and the towns. Through its focus on maskanda, this book provides insight into how people understand the world and themselves through aural experience and sensitivity. This focus constitutes the book's main question: how do all those involved in maskanda (performers, audiences, producers, organizers, politicians, and researchers) foreground their aural experiences? In what ways do we musically and performatively adapt and appropriate sounding and stage material that we encounter in our lives and careers? What words do we use to describe what we hear? The book examines how we use our voices, bodies and musical instruments to signify, evoke, invoke, present, produce, interpret and comment on the world in which we live--