RHD_SoundAfr2020 - Sounding Africa on the Indian Ocean Littoral and in the Southwestern Indian Ocean

The debates surrounding appropriate teaching pedagogies of African music in African tertiary institutions have raged for decades (Omibiyi 1971; Erlmann 1986; Oehrle 1995; Nzewi 2002; Carver 2002; Herbst 2007; McConnachie 2016) and yet, despite leadership that promotes an essentialised notion of African culture, universities are struggling to incorporate African indigenous and traditional music into the mainstream music curricula. In considering African musical arts, our project proposes to review, analyse, theorise and report on the pedagogical interventions made by music or performance departments at selected universities based in Africa. Viewing the approaches through the methodological lens of embodied learning, (Davidson and Emberly 2012; Leman et al. 2018); experiential learning (Kolb 1984; Kolb 2005, Sternberg and Zhang 2014), one goal of this project is to challenge established norms of teaching and learning music which are still based on pedagogies established in the Global North. This decolonial approach will be achieved through critical reflection of empirical data at partner institutions which engage with traditional African methods of musiciking. These experiential-learning processes, which encourage experimenting with traditional African music knowledge first-hand, may provide insights into transgressive education (Kolb, 1984). The vision for inclusive perspectives of African musical arts pedagogies, referencing innovation and sustainability, builds on this notion of transgressive learning which empowers instructors with tools to reveal, mitigate, and challenge domineering structures in higher education (Drane et al. 2019). The research will report on the development of a collaborative approach to teaching and learning combining arts-based pedagogies and action research around the continent. It will contribute to conceptualising a sonic theory of learning that speaks to the erosion of knowledge and cultures connected to sustainability practices.