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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Questions Regarding Tradition and Modernity in Contemporary Amakwaya Practice |
| Authors: | Giddy, Patrick Detterbeck, Markus |
| Year: | 2005 |
| Periodical: | Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa |
| Issue: | 59 |
| Pages: | 26-44 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | South Africa |
| Subjects: | modernization songs Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Architecture and the Arts nationalism |
| External link: | https://muse.jhu.edu/article/190009 |
| Abstract: | In contrast to the view that modern social developments entail a radical discontinuity in history and break with tradition, this paper demonstrates that, in South Africa, the black choral tradition of 'amakwaya' continues to synthesize elements from other cultures without fully losing its continuity with past tradition. The hybrid musical form of 'amakwaya' symbolized, in restrictive political circumstances, the general political and social aspirations of black people and somehow formed their cultural identity. The identity being constructed was, however, mixed with elements of a class stratification and exclusivity, pitting the educated middle class and 'progress' against rural and uneducated 'traditional' folk. This aspect of exclusiveness has been reinforced more recently by commercialization, and competitiveness and monetary gain have increasingly played a distorting role in the choral practice. However, the evidence indicates that the cultural practice here in question is able to resist - through assimilation - those seemingly overwhelming detraditionalizing forces. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |
