Tuning the Kingdom

Kawuugulu Musical Performance, Politics, and Storytelling in Buganda
Erscheinungsjahr 2018
ISBN: 978-1-58046-904-3
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer

Buch, Englisch, Band 8, 180 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 233 mm, Gewicht: 420 g

Reihe: Eastman/Rochester Studies Ethnomusicology

Examines how the Kawuugulu Clan-Royal Musical Ensemble uses musical performance and storytelling to manage, structure, model, and legitimize power relations among the Baganda people of south-central Uganda.

Tuning the Kingdom draws on oral and written accounts, archival research, and musical analysis to examine how the Kawuugulu Clan-Royal Musical Ensemble of the Kingdom of Buganda (arguably the kingdom's oldest and longest-surviving performance ensemble) has historically managed, structured, modeled, and legitimized power relations among the Baganda people of south-central Uganda. Damascus Kafumbe argues that the ensemble sustains a complex sociopolitical hierarchy, interweaving and maintaining a delicate balance between kin and clan ties and royal prerogatives through musical performance and storytelling that integrates human and nonhuman stories. He describes this phenomenonas "tuning the kingdom," and he compares it to the process of tensioning or stretching Kiganda drums, which are always moving in and out of tune. Even as Kawuugulu continues to adapt to the rapidly changing world around it, Tuning the Kingdom documents how Kawuugulu has historically articulated and embodied principles of the three inextricably related domains that serve as the backbone of Kiganda politics: kinship, clanship, and kingship.

Winner of the 2020 Kwabena Nketia Book Prize of the African and African Diasporic Music Section of the Society for Ethnomusicology and Honorable Mention for the 2019 Ogot Book Prize of the African Studies Association

Damascus Kafumbe is Assistant Professor of Music at Middlebury College.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kafumbe, Damascus

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikwissenschaft Allgemein Musikethnologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction
The Kawuugulu Clan-Royal Music and Dance Ensemble
Kawuugulu and Intra-Clan Politics
Kawuugulu and Royal Politics
Kawuugulu and Inter-Clan Politics
Conclusion: A Performative Constitution

Über Autor(innen)

Kafumbe, Damascus
DAMASCUS KAFUMBE is the Edward C. Knox Professor of International Studies and professor of music at Middlebury College in Vermont.