Perpetuating the Politics of Praise: Jeli Singers, Radios, and Political Mediation in Mali

• Applicant: Professorin Dorothea E. Schulz, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: from 2000 to 2001
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5301674

This book describes continuities and changes in the political signifcance of jeliw, praise singers, in Mali woh performed crucial tasks of reputation management on behalf of their noble patrons in the nineteenth century. It is a case study of the effects and limitation of a mode of legitimation, and of its transformation in a changing institutional context. The performances of jeli musicians on broadcast media are taken as a starting point to illuminate two aspects of state formation in Africa: the emergence of a public domain established by broadcast media, and the creation of a national culture.Because their music is predominantly displayed in the public domain established by the national radio, jeli singers sustain the homogenizing effects of the governmental politics of culture. But their music also serves listeners from the south as a medium to assert the particularity of their local tradition in a multicultural nation state.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants