Lives in Music

Lives in Music analyses interwoven patterns of mobility, change, and power in music and dance practices. It challenges some commonly accepted conceptual tools that are ubiquitous in anthropology today, including cultural hybridity, transnational networks, and globalization. Based on seven "itineraries" that are the result of extensive ethnographic long-term field research efforts, the processes of geographic and social mobility, transformation, and power relative to music and dance practices are explored in different parts of the world. Seven writers provide life stories constructed through ethnographic techniques and life histories and supported by a deep knowledge of local customs.

Sara Le Menestrel is a cultural anthropologist with the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris and is a member of the Center for North American Studies at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales.

Introduction, Part I - Seven singular itineraries, 1. "Olivier Araste: Ancestors, memory, and a career as a maloya musician", 2. "From Tulear to France: Damily - A tsapiky musician from Madagascar", 3. "Lori, Linda, and Andrea: The journeys of three French Louisiana music transplants" 4. "The sense of belonging - or not - to a transnational network: Performers and promoters of Afro-Cuban music and dance in Veracruz, Mexico" 5. "Ahmad Wahdan: Maestro among the frenzied streets of Cairo" 6. "From milonguero to "professor": Inventing a trade" 7. Julien: A bass-player hits the road" Part II. From singulars to plural Circulations; Changes in status and categorizations; From "métissage" to adjustment, Conclusion