Music, Culture, and the Politics of Health

This book is an ethnographic study of a HIV/AIDS choir who use music to articulate their individual and collective experiences of the disease. The study interrogates as to understand the bigger picture of HIV/AIDS using the approach of microanalysis of music event. It places the choir, and the cultural and political issues addressed in their music in the broader context of South Africa's public health and political history, and the global culture and politics of AIDS.

Austin C. Okigbo is assistant professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Chapter One:Introduction: Towards Ethnography of AIDS Music in a South African Experience
Chapter Two:The Making of the Siphithemba Choir
Chapter Three:Music and Epidemics in South Africa
Chapter Four:"We are a family"- Musical Space as Social Space of Communal Action
Chapter Five:"We Sing with One Mind and Purpose": Expressing Spirituality and Sociocultural Experience
Chapter Six:Creative Processes and Musical Stylistics
Chapter Seven:Dance without Drum: Playing the Politics of Culture in the Context of an Epidemic
Chapter Eight:The Siphithemba in Politics of Identity and Representation
Chapter Nine:Conclusion: Reflections on Siphithemba Choir and the Politics of AIDS and Health