Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T02:32:29.905Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mis/Representation of Culture in two Hampshire Churches

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2013

DENNIS OLADEHINDE ELUYEFA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper is about my experience in the ‘Church of Hampshire’ and the ‘Cosmopolitan Church of Hampshire’ (anonymous names) in Hampshire, England, where I wanted to play the dùndún and gángan (see Fig. 1), the two Yorùbá talking drums. For this I shall be adopting the stance of a reflective practitioner. I have played the dùndún in churches in Nigeria and Hungary. It was this experience that encouraged me to attempt to introduce it to the two churches, hoping that they would welcome new possibilities. This paper will analyse how such expectations were unfulfilled. The extracts in italics are taken from my personal journal. The names of the people in this paper are anonymized. I will start by thoroughly describing the position of music within the Yorùbá culture, and the nature of indigenous Yorùbá spiritual practice.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , October 2013 , pp. 214 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1 Kamau, Lucy Jayne, ‘Conceptual Patterns in Yoruba Culture’, in Rapoport, Amos, ed., The Mutual Interaction of People and Their Built Environment (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1976), pp. 333–64, here p. 333Google Scholar.

2 Okafor, Richard C., ‘Music in Nigerian Education’, African Music, 7, 2 (1991), pp. 5–12, here p. 6Google Scholar.

3 Floyd, Malcolm, Composing the Music of Africa (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), p. 2Google Scholar.

4 Maduakor, Obi, Wole Soyinka: An Introduction to His Writing (New York: Garland, 1986), p. 29Google Scholar.

5 Soyinka, Wole, Myth, Literature and the African World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 147Google Scholar.

6 Boyce-Tillman, June, Unconventional Wisdom (London: Equinox, 2007), p. 209Google Scholar.

7 Awolalu, J. Omosade, Yoruba Beliefs and Sacrificial Rites (Brooklyn, Athelia: Henrietta Press, Inc., 1996), p. 20Google Scholar.

8 Kamau, ‘Conceptual Patterns’, p. 335.

9 Okagbue, Osita, African Theatres and Performances (London: Routledge, 2007), p. 18Google Scholar.

10 Ajayi, Bade, ‘The Talking Drum’, in Lawal, Nike S., Sadiku, Matthew N. O. and Dopamu, Ade, eds., Understanding Yoruba Life and Culture (Trenton and Asmara: Africa World Press Inc., 2004), pp. 575–88, here p. 581Google Scholar.

11 Adegbite, Ademola, ‘The Drum and Its Role in Yorùbá Religion’, Journal of Religion in Africa, 18, 2 (1988), pp. 15–26, here p. 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 One, Oba Laoye, the Timi of Ede, ‘Yoruba Drums’, Odu: A Journal of Yoruba and Related Studies, 7 (1959), pp. 5–14Google Scholar, here p. 10.

13 Dennis O. Eluyefa, ‘Recontextualisation of the Dùndún Drumming Tradition in Hampshire’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Winchester, 2011, p. 46.

14 Ibid., p. 46.

15 Euba, Akin, Yoruba Drumming: The Dundun Tradition (Bayreuth: Bayreuth University, 1990), p. 425Google Scholar.

16 Rohmer, Martin, ‘Patterns of Communication: Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman, Royal Exchange Theatre Production Manchester, 1990’, in Breitinger, Eckhard, ed., Theatre and Performance in Africa (Bayreuth: Bayreuth University, 1994), pp. 45–63Google Scholar.

17 See Awolalu, Yoruba Beliefs, 1996.

18 See Eluyefa, ‘Recontextualisation of the Dùndún Drumming Tradition’, 2011.

19 Yankson, Sednak Kojo Duffu, Africa's Root in God: The Knowledge of the Creator Embedded in the Indigenous African Culture (New York: Sankofa Heritage Book, 2007), p. 3Google Scholar.

20 Matthew Sadiku, ‘The Practice of Christianity’, in Lawal, Sadiku and Dopamu, Understanding Yoruba Life and Culture, pp. 125–36, here p. 127.

21 Euba, Yoruba Drumming, p. 209.

22 Euba, Akin, ‘Concept of Neo-African Music as Manifested in the Yoruba Folk Opera’, in Monson, Ingrid, ed., The African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective (New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 2000), pp. 207–40, here p. 213Google Scholar.

23 Office for National Statistics 2001, http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadTableView.do?a=7&b=276987&c=Winchester&d=13&e=13&g=453014&i=1001×1003×1004&m=0&r=1&s=1349635144325&enc=1&dsFamilyId=47, accessed 6 October 2012.

24 Nobles, Wades, ‘African Philosophy: Foundations for Black Psychology’, in Hayes III, Floyd W., ed., A Turbulent Voyage: Readings in African American Studies, 3rd edn (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2000), pp. 280–92, here p. 283Google Scholar.

25 See Mbiti, John S., African Religions and Philosophy, 2nd edn (London: Heinemann, 1969)Google Scholar.

26 Nobles, ‘African Philosophy’, p. 283.

27 See Daley, Michael, ‘The Gatekeeper’, Hudson Review, 43, 1 (1990), pp. 104–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kraakman, Reinier H., ‘Gatekeepers: The Anatomy of a Third-Party Enforcement Strategy’, Journal of Law, Economics & Organization, 2, 1 (1986), pp. 53–104Google Scholar.

28 Tushman, Michael L. and Katz, Ralph, ‘External Communication and Project Performance: An Investigation into the Role of Gatekeepers’, Management Science, 26, 11 (1980), pp. 1071–85, here p. 1071CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 ‘Bringing the African Culture into the Church’, www.afrikaworld.net/afrel/tlhagale.htm, accessed 10 August 2010.

30 Yankson, Africa's Root in God, p. 3.

31 Warden, Nolan, ‘A History of the Conga Drum’, Percussive Notes, 15 (2005), pp. 1–8Google Scholar, here pp. 2–3.

32 Cyrille, Dominique, ‘Popular Music and Martinican–Creole Identity’, Black Music Research Journal, 22, 1 (2002), pp. 65–88, here p. 72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Warden, ‘A History of the Conga Drum’, p. 2.

34 Ibid., p. 4.

35 Office for National Statistics 2001, http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadTableView.do?a=7&b=6275251&c=Southampton&d=13&e=13&g=6401303&i=1001×1003×1004&o=1&m=0&r=1&s=1368177575097&enc=1&dsFamilyId=47, accessed 6 October 2012.

36 Olson, Daniel V. A., ‘Church Friendships: Boon or Barrier to Church Growth?’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 28, 4 (1989), pp. 432–47, here p. 432CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 See Clapp, Rodney, A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society (Madison: InterVarsity Press, 1996)Google Scholar, esp. Chapter 7, ‘The Church as a Community of Friends’.

38 See Harrison, Michael I., ‘Sources of Recruitment to Catholic Pentecostalism’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 13, 1 (1974), pp. 49–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lofland, John, Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1977)Google Scholar.

39 Olson, ‘Church Friendships’, p. 433.

40 Young, Iris Marion, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), p. 59Google Scholar.

41 Schiele, Jerome H., ‘Cultural Oppression and the High-Risk Status of African Americans’, Journal of Black Studies, 35, 6 (2005), pp. 802–26, here p. 804CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 See Martin, Elmer and Martin, Joanne, Social Work and the Black Experience (Washington, DC: National Association of Black Workers, 1995)Google Scholar.

43 See Brooks, Roy L., Integration or Separation? A Strategy for Racial Equality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

44 Cohen, Anthony P., ‘Culture as Identity: An Anthropologist's View’, New Literary History, 24, 1 (1993), pp. 195–209, here p. 195CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 MacDonald, Raymond, Hargreaves, David and Miell, Dorothy, eds., Musical Identities (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 1Google Scholar.

46 See Buti TIhagale, www.afrikaworld.net/afrel/tlhagale.htm, accessed 10 August 2010.

47 Bediako, Kwame, Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995), p. 194Google Scholar.

48 This was one of the questions in Matt's email.

49 Sadiku, ‘The Practice of Christianity’, p. 126

50 Kambon, Kobi K. K., African/Black Psychology in the American Context: An African-Centered Approach (Tallahassee, FL: Nubian Nation Publications, 1998), p. 180Google Scholar.

51 Yeðenoðlu, Mehmet, ‘Cultural Studies in the United States and Multiculturalism’, Journal of American Studies of Turkey, 3 (1996), pp. 53–8Google Scholar, here p. 54.

52 Russell, Bertrand, Power: A New Social Analysis (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1938), p. 35Google Scholar.

53 Wrong, Dennis, Power: Its Forms, Bases, and Uses, 2nd edn (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1995), p. 2Google Scholar.

54 See Foucault, Michel, ‘The Subject and Power’, Critical Inquiry, 8, 4 (1982), pp. 777–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 See Bowen, David E., ‘Empowering Service Employees’, Sloan Management Review, 36 (1995), pp. 73–84Google Scholar; and Conger, Jay A. and Kanungo, Rabindra N., ‘The Empowerment Process: Integrating Theory and Practice’, Academy of Management Review, 13, 3 (1988), pp. 471–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Coser, Lewis A., ‘A Dialogue of the Deaf’, Contemporary Sociology, 8, 5 (1979), pp. 680–682CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here p. 680.