Overview

Song Walking explores the politics of land, its position in memories, and its foundation in changing land-use practices in western Maputaland, a borderland region situated at the juncture of South Africa, Mozambique, and Swaziland. Angela Impey investigates contrasting accounts of this little-known geopolitical triangle, offsetting textual histories with the memories of a group of elderly women whose songs and everyday practices narrativize a century of borderland dynamics. Drawing evidence from women’s walking songs (amaculo manihamba)—once performed while traversing vast distances to the accompaniment of the European mouth-harp (isitweletwele)—she uncovers the manifold impacts of internationally-driven transboundary environmental conservation on land, livelihoods, and local senses of place. This book links ethnomusicological research to larger themes of international development, environmental conservation, gender, and local economic access to resources. By demonstrating that development processes are essentially cultural processes and revealing how music fits within this frame, Song Walking testifies to the affective, spatial, and economic dimensions of place, while contributing to a more inclusive and culturally apposite alignment between land and environmental policies and local needs and practices.

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9780226538013

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Reviews

Song Walking is an ethnographic account with rich historical narrative on the song repertories, remembered and newly created, of two groups of women living in the border territories of South Africa, Swaziland, and Mozambique, in a space called Maputaland...the book is beautifully written, largely avoiding the jarring presence of academic jargon, to constitute instead, a feeling of warmth, deep respect, even intimacy with these two groups of women singers. --Carol Muller International Journal of African Historical Studies

"""This accomplished and moving monograph by Angela Impey provides a nuanced gendered history of the borderlands that lie at the intersection of South Africa, Mozambique, and Swaziland... I would encourage all those interested in South Africa, environmental history, conservation, and interdisciplinary methodology, that indeed, this book is an important contribution.""-- ""African Studies Review"" ""Song Walking is an ethnographic account with rich historical narrative on the song repertories, remembered and newly created, of two groups of women living in the border territories of South Africa, Swaziland, and Mozambique, in a space called Maputaland...the book is beautifully written, largely avoiding the jarring presence of academic jargon, to constitute instead, a feeling of warmth, deep respect, even intimacy with these two groups of women singers.""--Carol Muller ""International Journal of African Historical Studies"""

Author Information

Angela Impey is a senior lecturer in Ethnomusicology and convenes the MA in Music in Development at SOAS, University of London.

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