Bonnie McConnell | The Australian National University (original) (raw)

Papers by Bonnie McConnell

Media, Culture & Society, 2024

Bonnie B McConnell, Hajara B Huma, Mustapha Minteh, Buba Darboe In the Gambia, female fertility ... more Bonnie B McConnell, Hajara B Huma, Mustapha Minteh, Buba Darboe

In the Gambia, female fertility societies known as kanyeleng are made up of women who have experienced infertility or the death of a young child. They employ musical performance and fertility ritual practices to support members and promote the health of women and babies. This paper examines the changing forms of creativity and connection practiced by kanyeleng performers through engagement with social media in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation conducted in person and online (2021-2022), we show that while WhatsApp provided an opportunity for kanyeleng to build new social connections and experiment with new forms of musical creativity, it also presented challenges, including inequities in access, and increased misinformation and mistrust of health workers. Going beyond formulations of domestication of technology within private home spaces, we theorise kanyeleng domestication as a process of

BMJ Open, 2023

Katie Rose M Sanfilippo , Vivette Glover, Victoria Cornelius, Rita T Amiel Castro, Bonnie McConne... more Katie Rose M Sanfilippo , Vivette Glover, Victoria Cornelius, Rita T Amiel Castro, Bonnie McConnell, Buba Darboe, Hajara B Huma, Hassoum Ceesay, Paul Ramchandani

Objectives: It is important to be able to detect symptoms of common mental disorders (CMDs) in pregnant women. However, the expression of these disorders can differ across cultures and depend on the specific scale used. This study aimed to (a) compare Gambian pregnant women’s responses to the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and Self-reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20) and (b) compare responses to the EPDS in pregnant women in The Gambia and UK.
Design: This cross-sectional comparison study investigates Gambian EPDS and SRQ-20 scores through correlation between the two scales, score distributions, proportion of women with high levels of symptoms, and descriptive item analysis. Comparisons between the UK and Gambian EPDS scores were made by investigating score distributions, proportion of women with high levels of symptoms, and descriptive item analysis.
Setting This study took place in The Gambia, West Africa and London, UK.
Participants 221 pregnant women from The Gambia completed both the SRQ-20 and the EPDS; 368 pregnant women from the UK completed the EPDS.
Results: Gambian participants’ EPDS and SRQ-20 scores were significantly moderately correlated (rs=0.6, p<0.001), had different distributions, 54% overall agreement, and different proportions of women identified as having
high levels of symptoms (SRQ-20=42% vs EPDS=5% using highest cut-off score). UK participants had higher EPDS scores (M=6.5, 95% CI (6.1 to 6.9)) than Gambian participants (M=4.4, 95% CI (3.9 to 4.9)) (p<0.001, 95% CIs (−3.0 to –1.0), Cliff’s delta = −0.3).
Conclusions: The differences in scores from Gambian pregnant women to the EPDS and SRQ-20 and the different EPDS responses between pregnant women in the UK and The Gambia further emphasise how methods and understanding around measuring perinatal mental health symptoms developed in Western countries need to be applied with care in other cultures.

PLOS Global Public Health , 2023

Katie Rose M. Sanfilippo , Bonnie McConnell , Buba Darboe, Hajara B. Huma, Vivette Glover, Lauren... more Katie Rose M. Sanfilippo , Bonnie McConnell , Buba Darboe, Hajara B. Huma, Vivette Glover, Lauren Stewart

Maternal mental health problems are experienced frequently in the perinatal period and can be up to twice as common in women from low-and middle-income countries. The terms used to describe mental illness symptoms and the factors that contribute to developing these symptoms are affected by culture and context. Based on 14 focus group discussions held with pregnant women, health professionals and cultural leaders, this qualitative study aimed to understand women's experiences of mental distress during the perinatal period in The Gambia. To do this it aimed to 1) identify the most commonly used idioms of distress, 2) identify the factors believed to affect women's perinatal mental health and 3) explore the role of existing cultural practices, including musical practices, that were identified as locally significant in supporting maternal and mental health. Sondomoo tenkung baliyaa (Mandinka) and xel bu dalut (Wolof) were identified as the most commonly used idioms of distress which roughly translate to lack of a steady mind/heart. Using thematic analysis, six themes (Poverty of the healthcare system, Shifting cultural context, Economic factors, Social factors, Spiritual factors, and Cultural practices involving music) were identified to describe the factors that shape women's experience of mental health during the perinatal period. Lack of economic resources, the prevailing poverty of the health system, an unsupportive husband and spiritual attack by evil spirits or witches were common reasons given for a woman experiencing maternal mental distress. Various existing cultural practices involving music, such as fertility societies, naming ceremonies and community music-making, were recognised as valuable for supporting women's mental health during the perinatal period. This work emphasises that initiatives to support perinatal mental health should be grounded in an understanding of local community cultural practices, knowledge, and experiences.

Music & Science, 2023

In this paper we report on the inaugural meetings of the Musical Care International Network held ... more In this paper we report on the inaugural meetings of the Musical Care International Network held online in 2022. The term “musical care” is defined by Spiro and Sanfilippo (2022) as “the role of music—music listening as well as music-making—in supporting any aspect of people’s developmental or health needs” (pp. 2–3). Musical care takes varied forms in different cultural contexts and involves people from different disciplines and areas of expertise. Therefore, the Musical Care International Network takes an interdisciplinary and international approach and aims to better reflect the disciplinary, geographic, and cultural diversity relevant to musical care. Forty-two delegates participated in 5 inaugural meetings over 2 days, representing 24 countries and numerous disciplines and areas of practice. Based on the meetings, the aims of this paper are to (1) better understand the diverse practices, applications, con- texts, and impacts of musical care around the globe and (2) introduce the Musical Care International Network. Transcriptions of the recordings, alongside notes taken by the hosts, were used to summarise the conversations. The discussions developed ideas in three areas: (a) musical care as context-dependent and social, (b) musical care’s position within the broader research and practice context, and (c) debates about the impact of and evidence for musical care. We can conclude that musical care refers to context-dependent and social phenomena. The term musical care was seen as useful in talking across boundaries while not minimizing individual disciplinary and profes- sional expertise. The use of the term was seen to help balance the importance and place of multiple disciplines, with a role to play in the development of a collective identity. This collective identity was seen as important in advo- cacy and in helping to shape policy. The paper closes with proposed future directions for the network and its emerg- ing mission statement.

Neta Spiro1,2,* , Katie Rose M. Sanfilippo3,*, Bonnie B. McConnell4,*,
Georgia Pike-Rowney5, Filippo Bonini Baraldi6,7, Bernd Brabec8,
Kathleen Van Buren9, Dave Camlin10, Tânya Marques Cardoso11,
Burçin Uçaner Çifdalöz12, Ian Cross13, Ben Dumbauld14, Mark Ettenberger15,16, Kjetil Falkenberg17, Sunelle Fouché18,19, Emma Frid17,20, Jane Gosine21,
april l. graham-jackson22, Jessica A. Grahn23, Klisala Harrison24, Beatriz Ilari25 , Sally Mollison26, Steven J. Morrison27 , Gabriela Pérez-Acosta28 ,
Rosie Perkins1,2, Jessica Pitt10, Tal-Chen Rabinowitch29, Juan-Pablo Robledo30 , Efrat Roginsky31, Caitlin Shaughnessy1,2, Naomi Sunderland32, Alison Talmage33, Giorgos Tsiris34,35 and Krista de Wit36

African Studies Review, 2022

Traditional communicators known as kanyeleng have increasingly taken on roles in climate change a... more Traditional communicators known as kanyeleng have increasingly taken on roles in climate change adaptation in The Gambia. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted from 2018 to 2019, McConnell and Jallow show that kanyeleng performers contribute to disseminating information about climate change adaptation while also creating the social conditions necessary for citizens to hear and respond effectively to that information. Understandings of climate change in The Gambia intersect with broader concerns about loss of traditional and religious values. Through their performances, kanyeleng work as mediators to resolve tensions associated with climate change adaptation and integrate Indigenous environmental knowledge and climate science.

Mixing Pop and Politics: Political Dimensions of Popular Music in the 21st Century, 2022

This chapter investigates diaspora and heritage through an analysis of the African Music and Cult... more This chapter investigates diaspora and heritage through an analysis of the African Music and Cultural Festival held annually in the city of Melbourne, Australia. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in 2016-2017, the chapter provides insight into the mixing of popular music with the politics of Australian multiculturalism. It examines the way festival performances articulate multi-layered identities and a dynamic understanding of diasporic heritage as a tool for living and relating to others. Bringing an Australian perspective to African diaspora studies, the chapter demonstrates that festival participants engage popular music to negotiate the tensions associated with Australian multiculturalism and to challenge one-dimensional representations of Africans in Australia.

Health Promotion International , 2022

Lauren Stewart, Bonnie B. McConnell, Buba Darboe, Vivette Glover, Hajara B. Huma, Katie Rose M. S... more Lauren Stewart, Bonnie B. McConnell, Buba Darboe, Vivette Glover, Hajara B. Huma, Katie Rose M. Sanfilippo, Ian Cross, Hassoum Ceesay, Paul Ramchandani, and Victoria Cornelius

Arts in Health initiatives and interventions to support health have emerged from and been applied to mainly WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) contexts. This overlooks the rich cultural traditions that exist across the globe, where community groups often make prolific use of participatory song and dance as a part of ceremonies, ritual and gatherings in everyday life. Here, we argue that these practices can provide a valuable starting point for the co-development of health interventions, illustrated by the CHIME project for perinatal mental health in The Gambia, which worked with local Kanyeleng groups (female fertility societies) to design and evaluate a brief intervention to support maternal mental health through social singing. Here, we use the project as a lens through which to highlight the value of co-creation, cultural embeddedness and partnership building in global health research.

Pilot and Feasibility Studies , 2019

Katie Rose M. Sanfilippo, Bonnie McConnell, Victoria Cornelius, Buba Darboe, Hajara B. Huma, Mali... more Katie Rose M. Sanfilippo, Bonnie McConnell, Victoria Cornelius, Buba Darboe, Hajara B. Huma, Malick Gaye, Paul Ramchandani, Hassoum Ceesay, Vivette Glover, Ian Cross & Lauren Stewart

Background
Perinatal mental health problems affect up to one in five women worldwide. Mental health problems in the perinatal period are a particular challenge in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where they can be at least twice as frequent as in higher-income countries. It is thus of high priority to develop new low-cost, low-resource, non-stigmatising and culturally appropriate approaches to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression perinatally, for the benefit of both mother and child. Music-centred approaches may be particularly useful in The Gambia since a range of musical practices that specifically engage pregnant women and new mothers already exist.

Methods
This protocol is for a study to examine the feasibility of undertaking a stepped wedge trial to test how a Community Health Intervention through Musical Engagement (CHIME) could be beneficial in alleviating perinatal mental distress in The Gambia. In this study, we plan to recruit 120 pregnant women (n = 60 intervention, n = 60 control) at four antenatal clinics over two 6-week stepped sequences. Women in the intervention will participate in weekly group-singing sessions, led by local Kanyeleng singing groups, for 6 weeks. The control group will receive standard care. We will assess symptoms of anxiety and depression using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and the Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20). The feasibility of the design will be assessed through recruitment, retention and attrition rates of participants, clinics' adherence to the schedule and completeness of data by site. Qualitative interviews and video and audio recordings will be used to evaluate the acceptability of the intervention.

Discussion
This feasibility trial will allow us to determine whether a larger trial with the same intervention and target group is feasible and acceptable in The Gambia.

BMJ Open , 2020

Katie Rose M Sanfilippo, Bonnie McConnell, Victoria Cornelius, Buba Darboe, Hajara B Huma, Malick... more Katie Rose M Sanfilippo, Bonnie McConnell, Victoria Cornelius, Buba Darboe, Hajara B Huma, Malick Gaye, Hassoum Ceesay, Paul Ramchandani, Ian Cross, Vivette Glover, Lauren Stewart

Ethnomusicology Forum , 2020

In December 2016, the Gambia appeared on the brink of violent conflict when Yahya Jammeh, the cou... more In December 2016, the Gambia appeared on the brink of violent conflict when Yahya Jammeh, the country’s dictator of 22 years, refused to concede defeat in the presidential election. This article investigates the way griot performers responded to the Gambia’s political crisis, using the platform of the popular kora mbalax style as a medium for political engagement and conflict resolution. It shows that performers’ responses to the Gambia’s political crisis drew on longstanding practices of conflict mediation while also demonstrating creativity and flexibility in engaging with social media and more direct forms of political critique.

International Journal of Community Music, 2019

In the Senegambia Region of West Africa, performers have long played a central role in conflict m... more In the Senegambia Region of West Africa, performers have long played a central role in conflict mediation. Historically, this has included both small-scale conflicts, such as those between neighbours, and larger-scale conflicts between groups. This article draws on evidence from ethnographic research with Gambian performers to explore contemporary perspectives on conflict and conciliation. I use analysis of three Mandinka-language songs relating to conflict within the family to show that performers work to promote conciliation through appeals to shared values of oneness, positive relationships and empathy. Examples include songs by hereditary professional musicians (jaloolu), a hip hop artist and female fertility society performers (kanyeleng). These songs are rooted in cultural frameworks of morality and goodness, while also reflecting gendered dynamics of risk and inequality.

Drawing on ethnographic research in Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra (2016–2017), this article exa... more Drawing on ethnographic research in Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra (2016–2017), this article examines the way musicians articulate positive African-Australian identities in the face of political and media discourse that emphasizes African difference and criminality. I use the concept of “Afropolitan projects” to describe the way musicians’ express complexity and multiplicity, simultaneously forging allegiances across difference and foregrounding the African roots of contemporary popular music.

Ethnomusicology, 2017

Kanyeleng fertility society musicians have become an integral part of health promotion programs i... more Kanyeleng fertility society musicians have become an integral part of health promotion programs in the Gambia. Health workers have embraced kanyeleng performance in the name of making their programs more participatory and therefore more effective in combatting persistent health problems. While participation has become a buzzword in global health discourse, the contested social relations of musical performances have not been adequately examined. Bringing a medical ethnomusicological perspective to interdisciplinary debates on participation, this article foregrounds the participatory dynamics of music making as they intersect with local concepts of music, health, and well-being.

This article examines the contributions of kanyeleng (female fertility society) performers to Ebo... more This article examines the contributions of kanyeleng (female fertility society) performers to Ebola prevention in The Gambia, drawing on ethnographic research with performers and health workers, and offering analysis of performances. Contrasting with public-health programs that present African culture as an obstacle, kanyeleng performers' participation in Ebola prevention in The Gambia provides a model for more inclusive social mobilization and communication, grounded in cultural strengths. Involving community-based musicians such as kanyeleng in communication programs represents an important alternative to top-down approaches, which may reinforce fear and suspicion. To help audiences understand a foreign and unfamiliar disease, kanyeleng performers promote positive emotions of love and happiness over anger and fear.

This medical ethnomusicological study examines musical performance in The Gambia as a socio-emoti... more This medical ethnomusicological study examines musical performance in The Gambia as a socio-emotional intervention to promote health and wellbeing. Based on interviews and observations conducted during seventeen months of ethnographic research (2009; 2012-2013), this research is also informed by my long-term involvement with a Gambian HIV/AIDS support group (2006-present). I use the local concept of baadinyaa (Mandinka, “positive relationship”) in order to interrogate connections between musical performance, emotion, and health as they are articulated by performers and health workers in The Gambia. The concept of baadinyaa provides insight into musical performance as a “flexibility primer” (Hinton 2008) that facilitates emotional transformation and healing. Not uniform across social categories, emotional responses to music are shaped by social identity and power relations as well as individual experience and preference. This study finds that in the face of conflict and stigma, Gambian artists use musical performance, and its association with baadinyaa, as a resource to address negative emotions such as anger and anxiety and thereby promote health and healing.

Drawing on ethnographic research with kanyeleng fertility society performers and health workers i... more Drawing on ethnographic research with kanyeleng fertility society performers and health workers in The Gambia (2012-2013), this paper uses a social capital approach to analyze the relationship between musical performance and health communication. Health communication research has demonstrated the important role of social capital in mediating the impact of interventions. Music research has drawn attention to performance as a site in which social relationships and obligations are produced and negotiated. In this paper, I bring these two perspectives together in order to open up new ways of thinking about musical performance as a culturally appropriate strategy in health communication. Drawing on participant observation as well as individual and group interviews with performers and health workers (126 participants), I argue that kanyeleng performance facilitates health communication by building on existing social networks and forms of social capital. This research contributes to a paradigm shift in research on performance and health communication, moving away from individual- focused behaviour change communication, and toward a culture-centered approach that considers community participation in relation to broader social and structural issues. This research suggests that musical genres such as kanyeleng performance may help build trust between health professionals and target communities while also facilitating information dissemination and public debate on sensitive health topics.

Conferences Hosted by Bonnie McConnell

Turns and Revolutions in Popular Music Studies XX Biennial IASPM Conference School of Music, The... more Turns and Revolutions in Popular Music Studies

XX Biennial IASPM Conference
School of Music, The Australian National University
Canberra, Australia, 24–28 June 2019

Call for Presentations

Following the request of the Local Organizing Committee the deadline for abstract submissions to the XX IASPM Biennial conference, to be held in Canberra, Australia, 24–28 June 2019, has been extended for a fortnight, that is until 15th August. You can find the CfP including the new deadline below. Please notice that letters of acceptance will be sent by 15th October 2018 instead of 30th September.

As certain songsters and songstresses have noted, seasons turn, turn, turn, even if you are talking about a revolution. While global warming alters seasonal cycles with the aid of neoliberal and (pseudo)socialist forms of capitalism, and waves of societal turmoil follow each other with varying degrees of authoritarianism in different parts of the world, popular music studies remains committed to critical enquiry of music of the masses, the everyday, a variety of subcultures, the megastars, all with their revolutionary potential. Faced with the increasing worldwide austerity in the humanities and social sciences, caused by short-sighted research funding policies that purportedly aim at revolutionary technological and business innovations, popular music studies also struggles with its future directions. Whither popular music studies and where to turn?

Popular music studies in its institutional form is approaching the end of its youthful years, and IASPM will celebrate its twentieth biennial conference in Canberra. This provides also an opportunity to turn to the past and reconsider what may be learned from the twists and shouts of the previous decades. How have recent affective, neomaterialist, performative, post-humanist, spatial, transnational and visual turns, among others, affected popular music studies, and what might the emergent or future disciplinary turns be? Or to what extent do the turns and revolutions within popular music studies signal an excessive neoliberal belief in constant innovation that implies a lack of thorough investigation of the field’s intellectual history? How are the politics of higher education changing the field’s history of critical research and challenging its civic agenda?

To address these issues, as well as any other questions and topics related to the past, present and future turns and revolutions of popular music studies, the International Association for the Study of Popular Music invites proposals for the twentieth biennial conference, to be held at the School of Music at the Australian National University in Canberra 24–28 June 2019. The general theme of the conference is divided into six interrelated streams:

a) Temporal turns and revolutions. In recent years there has been a pronounced interest in popular music as cultural heritage. Alongside issues of heritagisation, this stream accommodates topics relating to nostalgia, history, historiography and futurology alike, and any other aspect involving temporal relations within popular music studies.

b) Spatial turns and revolutions. As popular music studies is a global field of enquiry, debates emerge concerning the key geographical loci of its knowledge production. This stream welcomes discussion on the centrality of Western conceptualisations of popular music and their challenges, including the variety of centre–periphery relations, “locals” versus “newcomers”, migration and displacement. Furthermore, how are issues of space and place dealt with in the field, including such liminal circumstances as festivals?

c) Technological turns and revolutions. Media studies approaches constitute a dominant strand of popular music studies, and in addition to issues of media, mediation, mediatisation, et cetera, this stream invites topics that address all dimensions of popular music and technology, whether conceived as practical technical solutions or more abstract logic behind the use of various tools and techniques. A particularly relevant theme in this stream is the presence of technological elements in all stages of the music industry, from production to consumption, and how they blur the lines between live, recorded and streamed music experiences. Additionally, how is technology inspiring aesthetic choices, also in terms of post-digital backlash?

d) Political turns and revolutions. Popular music studies, however defined, is intimately associated with questions of power relations and hence with politics. In an age of global migration, extremist populism, global warming and #metoo, the politics of popular music are implicated in issues of racism, ecological activism and gender and sexual discrimination in particular. Presentations focussing on identity, intersectionality, and more generally, inclusivity are especially welcome, as well as those that address the socio-historical shifts in protest music, however conceived.

e) Theoretical turns and revolutions. How has the inherent interdisciplinary nature of the field evolved during the last decades? How have “popular” and “music” been – and continue to be – understood in the field, and how is their “study” or “analysis” conceived? Furthermore, how are the theoretical and methodological choices that popular music scholars make today likely to affect the field’s “health and wellbeing” in the future? Of particular relevance here are topics that deal with conceptual curves and conflicts within popular music studies, whether stemming from feminism, Marxism, postcolonialism, semiotics, music analysis, or any strand of music theory in its broadest sense.

f) Affective turns and revolutions. Issues of feeling, emotion and pleasure have been central in the study of popular music, in part because of the importance granted to forms of stardom and fandom. Alongside such questions, this stream tackles additional aspects of affective attunements and alliances within popular music and its scholarly investigation.

Academic Committee

Pablo Alabarces, Emilia Barna, Sam de Boise, Giacomo Bottà, Diego García Peinazo, Elsa Grassy, Florian Heesch, Sarah Hill, Fabian Holt, Nadine Hubbs, Laura Jordán González, Akitsugu Kawamoto, Pil Ho Kim, Serge Lacasse, Kristin McGee, Isabella Pek, Rosa Reitsamer (co-chair), Geoff Stahl (co-chair).

Local Organising Committee

Samantha Bennett (chair), Catherine Hoad, Di Hughes, Stephen Loy, Bonnie McConnell, Pat O’Grady, Georgia Pike, Julie Rickwood, Geoff Stahl, Catherine Strong, Aleisha Ward, Samuel Whiting, Kirsten Zemke.

Abstracts

There will be four options: panels (of 3 or 4 presenters), individual papers, film/video presentations, or poster sessions. Panels and individual papers may also be delivered as practice-based presentations, featuring performance-based, composition-based, recording-based or multimedia-based research. In case of practice-based presentations, please make sure to include a description of room and/or technical requirements. In addition, online presentations may be considered for inclusion in the programme, yet priority is given to on-site participation.

Panels

Proposals of organized panels are strongly recommended (two-hour long sessions with four papers, or three papers and a discussant). Each session should leave at least 30 minutes for discussion or for comments by a discussant immediately following the presentations. The panel organizer should submit the panel abstract and all individual abstracts (200 words each) in one document, with a full list of participant names and email addresses. Where an independently submitted abstract appears to fit a panel, the Academic Committee may suggest the addition of a panellist.

Papers

We invite abstracts of no longer than 200 words, including five keywords for programming purposes and an optional list of references (max 10). Individual paper presentations are 20 minutes long to be followed by 10 minutes of discussion.

Film/video session

Recently completed films introduced by their author and discussed by conference participants may be proposed. Submit a 200-word abstract including titles, subjects, and formats, and indicate the duration of the proposed films/videos and introduction/discussion.

Poster session

A space where presenters can exhibit posters will be provided. A 200-word abstract by the poster’s author, including five keywords for programming purposes, must be submitted.

Submission

Please email your abstract no later than 15 August 2018, as a doc/odt/rtf attachment to iaspm2019@anu.edu.au. Please name the file with your surname (eg. Ciccone.docx). The following format should be used:

• Name, affiliation and contact email address
• Type of presentation (select one from: panel, individual paper, film/video, poster)
• Stream (select preferably one but not more than two from: Temporal/Spatial/Technological/Political/Theoretical/Affective Turns and Revolutions)
• Title of presentation
• Abstract (200 words maximum; in the case of panels, include a general abstract followed by individual abstracts, in total 1000 words maximum)
• Five keywords
• Bio (80 words maximum; in case of panels, bios of all participants)

Abstracts will be accepted in English, IASPM’s official language. Papers in all other languages are allowed, if accompanied by a visual presentation in English. Letters of acceptance will be sent by 30 September 2018.

Each participant must be a member of IASPM: www.iaspm.net/how-to-join. Each participant may present only one paper at the Conference, but may also preside over a panel or serve as a discussant.

The conference organisers look forward to receiving your submissions!

With kindest regards

IASPM Executive Committee:
Julio Mendivil, Chair
Jacopo Conti
Marta García Quiñones
Antti-Ville Kärjä
Kimi Kärki
Sílvia Martínez
Ann Werner

Books by Bonnie McConnell

Routledge, 2020

Music, Health, and Power offers an original, on-the-ground analysis of the role that music plays ... more Music, Health, and Power offers an original, on-the-ground analysis of the role that music plays in promoting healthy communities. The book brings the reader inside the world of kanyeleng fertility societies and HIV/AIDS support groups, where women use music to leverage stigma and marginality into new forms of power.

Drawing on ethnographic research conducted over a period of 13 years (2006–2019), the author articulates a strengths-based framework for research on music and health that pushes beyond deficit narratives to emphasize the creativity and resilience of Gambian performers in responding to health disparities. Examples from Ebola prevention programs, the former President’s AIDS “cure,” and a legendary underwear theft demonstrate the high stakes of women’s performances as they are caught up in broader contestations over political and medical authority.

This book will be of interest to scholars and students of ethnomusicology, medical anthropology, and African studies. The accompanying audio examples provide access to the women’s performances discussed in the text.