Dancing an Open Africanity: Playing with “Tradition” and Identity in the Spreading of Sabar in Europe

This paper describes one of the constructions of African identity that occur through the spreading of sabar in European cities. Basing on a multi-sited fieldwork between Dakar, France and Switzerland, this paper traces the local roots and transnational routes of this Senegalese dance and music perfo...

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Main Author: Aterianus-Owanga Alice
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: De Gruyter 2019-01-01
Series:Open Cultural Studies
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1515/culture-2019-0030
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author Aterianus-Owanga Alice
author_facet Aterianus-Owanga Alice
author_sort Aterianus-Owanga Alice
collection DOAJ
description This paper describes one of the constructions of African identity that occur through the spreading of sabar in European cities. Basing on a multi-sited fieldwork between Dakar, France and Switzerland, this paper traces the local roots and transnational routes of this Senegalese dance and music performance and presents the “transnational social field” (Levitt and Glick-Schiller) that sabar musicians and dancers have created in Europe. It analyses the representations of Africanity, Senegality and Blackness that are shared in Sabar dances classes, and describes how diasporic artists contribute to (re)invent “traditions” in migration. In this transnational dance world, “blackness” and Africanity are not homogenous and convertible categories of identification, on the contrary, they are made of many tensions and arrangements, which allow individuals to include or exclude otherness, depending on situations and contexts.
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spelling doaj.art-64c76696294543179602979018e6a6372022-12-21T18:34:23ZengDe GruyterOpen Cultural Studies2451-34742019-01-013134736110.1515/culture-2019-0030culture-2019-0030Dancing an Open Africanity: Playing with “Tradition” and Identity in the Spreading of Sabar in EuropeAterianus-Owanga Alice0University of Lausanne, ISSRLausanneThis paper describes one of the constructions of African identity that occur through the spreading of sabar in European cities. Basing on a multi-sited fieldwork between Dakar, France and Switzerland, this paper traces the local roots and transnational routes of this Senegalese dance and music performance and presents the “transnational social field” (Levitt and Glick-Schiller) that sabar musicians and dancers have created in Europe. It analyses the representations of Africanity, Senegality and Blackness that are shared in Sabar dances classes, and describes how diasporic artists contribute to (re)invent “traditions” in migration. In this transnational dance world, “blackness” and Africanity are not homogenous and convertible categories of identification, on the contrary, they are made of many tensions and arrangements, which allow individuals to include or exclude otherness, depending on situations and contexts.https://doi.org/10.1515/culture-2019-0030sabarmigrationtraditionidentityafricanity
spellingShingle Aterianus-Owanga Alice
Dancing an Open Africanity: Playing with “Tradition” and Identity in the Spreading of Sabar in Europe
Open Cultural Studies
sabar
migration
tradition
identity
africanity
title Dancing an Open Africanity: Playing with “Tradition” and Identity in the Spreading of Sabar in Europe
title_full Dancing an Open Africanity: Playing with “Tradition” and Identity in the Spreading of Sabar in Europe
title_fullStr Dancing an Open Africanity: Playing with “Tradition” and Identity in the Spreading of Sabar in Europe
title_full_unstemmed Dancing an Open Africanity: Playing with “Tradition” and Identity in the Spreading of Sabar in Europe
title_short Dancing an Open Africanity: Playing with “Tradition” and Identity in the Spreading of Sabar in Europe
title_sort dancing an open africanity playing with tradition and identity in the spreading of sabar in europe
topic sabar
migration
tradition
identity
africanity
url https://doi.org/10.1515/culture-2019-0030
work_keys_str_mv AT aterianusowangaalice dancinganopenafricanityplayingwithtraditionandidentityinthespreadingofsabarineurope