• Toward an Acoustemology of Muslim Citizenship in Kenya

    Author(s):
    Andrew Eisenberg (see profile)
    Date:
    2011
    Subject(s):
    Africa, Area studies, Ethnomusicology, Islam
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    African studies
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6310D
    Abstract:
    The problem of Muslim belonging in predominantly Christian Kenya has taken on added urgency for academics and policymakers in recent years, in light of attacks by global Islamist militants on Kenyan soil, a massive influx of Muslim migrants from Somalia, and struggles over the future of the country’s Islamic courts system, among other factors. In my sound-centered research on social identification on Kenya’s Muslim- dominated coastal strip, I explore the contemporary conditions of Muslim citizenship—in the broad sense of social belonging within the nation-state—by taking an ethnographic ear to contestations over public space that happen in relation to public sound. My method- ological approach is grounded in Steven Feld’s (1996) acoustemology of place, which he describes as an inves- tigation into sounding and listening as ways of experi- encing and knowing physical and social environments. Here I lay out some basic coordinates for an acouste- mology of spatial politics and Muslim belonging on the Kenyan coast.
    Metadata:
    Published as:
    Journal article    
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    6 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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