A List 12/16/02 SLU PROFESSOR'S BOOK EXAMINES GENDER IDENTITY IN SWAHILI SONGS CANTON - The intersection between gender and identity as manifested through popular performance of Swahili songs is the subject of a new book of critical analysis by Mwenda Ntarangwi, visiting assistant professor of anthropology and acting director of the Kenya program at St. Lawrence University. Gender Identity and Performance: Understanding Swahili Cultural Realities Through Song is scheduled for publication in January of 2003 by Africa World Press. The publishers state, "Juxtaposing received cultural norms with everyday practices, Ntarangwi explores how gender and identity are practiced, constructed, mobilized and contested through popular musical expression. This analysis raises questions of critical importance to the study of gender and identity: How does musical performance aid in the construction of gendered behavior and perceptions? What images are used in the constructions of gender and how are those images mobilized in that process of construction? How is gender, as a social construct, given meaning through musical performance?" The book includes discussions of how music is used to probe socio-cultural assumptions about gender and identity in a Muslim context, among the Swahili people of Mombasa. Ntarangwi argues that while gender may be an important means of forming social identities, it is also a tool through which one can make an analysis of various socio-cultural realities and practices of a people. In so doing, one is able to go beyond the obvious role that gender may play in organizing social roles and cultural meanings, and enter into a realm where gender becomes a means to reshaping conceptual categories and intellectual theories of everyday experiences. Ntarangwi holds a bachelor's degree and master's degree from Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya, and a master's degree and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. He joined the St. Lawrence faculty in 2000 and has published and presented a number of researched works on popular culture in Africa; gender and popular music in East Africa; contemporary Swahili culture; social science in East Africa; and language and ethnicity.-30- Back To News Releases Back to St. Lawrence Homepage