Stambeli
Subtitle: music, trance, and alterity in Tunisia
By: Richard C. Jankowsky.
Series: Chicago studies in ethnomusicology; Chicago studies in ethnomusicology
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Chicago; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 237
ISBN-13: 9780226392172; 9780226392196
Subjects: Sṭambālī (Rite); Blacks -- Tunisia -- Rites and ceremonies; Spirit possession -- Tunisia; Music -- Tunisia -- History and criticism; Music -- Tunisia -- Religious aspects
Notes: This book is an account of stambeli, the healing trance music developed by sub-Saharan African slaves who were brought to Tunisia during the eighteenth century. In stambeli ritual, sub-Saharan spirits and North African Muslim saints make up a pantheon of unseen beings that heal humans through possession trance. Jankowsky shows that stambeli is marked by a series of "others"--the sprits and the humans they heal; the stambeli musicians, most of whom are of sub-Saharan descent, and the patients, who are note; and stambeli music itself, which is characterized by instruments and elements that are distinctly not Tunisian--which allows the ritual to play a dual role as a site of healing and as a space of social and historical encounter. It is both ethnography and history of the complex relationship between Tunisia's Arab and sub-Saharan populations.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Histories and geographies of encounter; title: Encountering the other people: alterity, possession, ethnography; title: Displacement and emplacement: the trans-saharan slave trade and the emergence of sṭambēlī; title: Black spirits, white saints: geographies of encounter in the sṭambēlī pantheon; title: Musical aesthetics and ritual dynamics; title: Voices of ritual authority: musicians, instruments, and vocality; title: Sounding the spirits: the ritual dynamics of temporality, modality, and sonic density; title: Trance, healing, and the bodily experience: from individual affliction to collective appeasement; title: Movements and trajectories; title: Pilgrimage and place: local performances, transnational imaginaries; title: Sṭambēlī on stage: (re)presentations, musical cosmopolitanism, and the public sphere; title: Conclusion: music, trance, and alterity; title: Epilogue (with notes on audio examples).