Identities in Greater Senegambia and Beyond (Portuguese Subtitles), SOAS University of London
Channel: SOAS University of London
Date: 2016-05-04

https://www.soas.ac.uk/cas/
Identities in Greater Senegambia and Beyond: Interdisciplinary Approaches through History and Music in Dialogue (with Portuguese Subtitles)

Organised by Dr Lucy Duran (SOAS) and Dr Toby Green (KCL), this three day conference (held on 24th-26th June 2015) brought together various academics, historians, artists, and musicians in order to analyse the relationship of identities through music and history. 
The workshop format allowed interdisciplinarity to breathe. So many different aspects of the cultural, physical and lived lives of the region were aired, and the ways in which they connected to one another made manifest in presentations and discussion. Patterns emerging included: the relationship of multilingualism to politics and nation state boundaries; the transmission of musical and cultural knowledge and how this is challenged by modernity, and ecological and economic fragility; the relationship between cultures in the diaspora and the homeland; the connection between historical patterns and musical instruments, and the way in which music allows the exploration of historical mixtures both in the past and the more recent present; the fragmentary nature of authority, and the relationship of masquerades, the state, kingship, and the historically constructed caste system to social authority and peace in the 21st century.

Most importantly, these themes emerged through both dialogue and performance – in true Greater Senegambian style.

This event was Sponsored by the British Academy and the African Studies Association of the UK and the video production was funded by King's College London.