(2019). Texts, Voices and Tapes: Mediating Poetry on the Swahili Muslim Coast in the 21st Century (original) (raw)

In this paper, I seek to investigate the manifold relationships between traditional and contemporary, oral and written Swahili poetry-in the utendi and mashairi forms-and its recitation in terms of the following considerations: how have advances in technology changed the production, transmission and reception of Swahili Islamic poetry? To what extent do writing and orality coexist in a recited text? What is the nature of performer identity formation within a "discourse network" of artists-the composer (mtungaji), reader (msomaji), and singer (mwimbaji)-who, in Goffman's words, play "participation roles" and appropriate poetry belonging to other living poets or to their own (sometimes anonymous) ancestors? In an attempt to answer these questions, I provide examples of performers and their performative craft. Keywords Islamic poetry-Lamu archipelago-mediation and appropriation-performing arts 1 Swahili Poetry from the Lamu Archipelago: The Future of the Past Many studies have been undertaken on the world of oral performance in Africa;1 the textualization of oral epics, from their oral versions to their transcriptions ;2 and on the relationship between performer(s) and oral poetry,3 as 1