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Abstract
This article explores Asalatu, a form of Islamic music among Yoruba Muslims in Nigeria, against the backdrop of globalization and the impact of Western music. The article points to observed changes in the music and musical possibilities within increasing secularization. Drawing on ethnographic data, the article illuminates tangential issues such as the use of the mother tongue for Islamic music as opposed to Arabic, and the introduction of dance to Islamic music to account for the changes. The article is a major contribution to knowledge in the fields of religion in Africa, Islamic studies, and popular/material culture. Globalization has closely knit nations together such that there is an acceleration of the integration of nations into the global system. Accounting for changes in Islamic music as a result of globalization helps provide insights into the nature of society, whether increasingly religious or secular.
Abstract
During European colonial times in Africa and elsewhere, missionary education was an integral part of the colonial instruments for political domination, economic exploitation, and cultural assimilation. This paper aims to investigate the process of making colonial subjects through missionary education that was mainly provided by Catholic and Evangelical mission schools during the Italian colonial period in Eritrea. The paper argues that the Catholic and Evangelical mission schools distinctively worked to achieve their separate objectives that can be explained as employment versus salvation, teaching versus preaching, flag versus Bible, and hands versus soul, respectively. While the Catholic mission school focused on training the hand in order to supply labour, the Evangelical mission school stressed harvesting the soul to cultivate a docile labour force. Despite their differences, the works of the Catholic and Evangelical mission schools placed much emphasis on and exerted much effort to producing a class of colonial subjects that could serve as brokers of power.