Parading respectability: an ethnography of the Christmas bands movement in the Western Cape, South Africa

Bruinders, Sylvia

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/30896 Copy

Description

Title

Parading respectability: an ethnography of the Christmas bands movement in the Western Cape, South Africa

Author(s)

Bruinders, Sylvia

Issue Date

2012-05-22T00:13:51Z

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Turino, Thomas R.

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Turino, Thomas R.

Committee Member(s)

• Buchanan, Donna A.
• Solis, Gabriel
• Lugo, Alejandro

Department of Study

Music

Discipline

Musicology

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Ethnomusicology
• subjectivity
• windband
• colored people
• Cape Town
• South Africa

Abstract

In this dissertation I investigate the Christmas Bands Movement of the Western Cape of South Africa. I document this centuries-old expressive practice of ushering in the joy of Christmas through music by way of a social history of the colored communities. The term colored is a local racialized designation for people of mixed descent–often perceived as of mixed-race by the segregationist and apartheid ideologues. In the complexity of race relations in South Africa these communities have emerged largely within the black/white interstices and remained marginal to the socio-cultural and political landscape. Their ancestral area is the Western Cape where most still live and where several of their expressive practices can be witnessed over the festive season in the summer months from December through March. The Christmas Bands Movement is one of three parading practices that are active during this period. Drawing on Foucault’s notion of “embodied subjectivity” and Butler’s work on gender and performativity, I explore three main themes, two of which are overlapping, throughout this dissertation. First, I investigate how the bands constitute themselves as respectable members of society through disciplinary routines, uniform dress, and military gestures. Second, I show how the band members constitute their subjectivity both individually as a member and collectively as a band; each has a mutual impact on the other. Even though the notion of subjectivity is more concerned with the inner thoughts and experiences and their concern with respectability is an outward manifestation of a social ideal, these two themes overlap as both relate to how the members constitute themselves. Third, I explore how the emergent gender politics, given renewed emphasis in the new South African constitution (1995) has played out in local expressive practices through the women’s insistence on being an integral part of the performance activities of the Christmas Bands Movement. Their acceptance into the Christmas Bands has transformed the historically gendered perception of the bands as male-only expressive forms. Furthermore, I will illustrate how this cultural practice has gained in popularity during the last seventeen years of democratic rule in South Africa, which may suggest that the historical marginality of the communities is still very present.

Graduation Semester

2012-05

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/30896

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2011 Sylvia Bruinders

Owning Collections