"Mandela Went to China...and India too": The Impact of Media on Children's Musical Cultures in South Africa (2009)
The cultural landscape of South Africa is reflected in the songs and games of young children whose music often embodies the social and political history of the world around them. My research with young children in the Limpopo province of South Africa is indicative of how children of similar ages identify with the idea of South Africa as a nation and how children themselves use music as an educational tool to engage with their social and cultural identities.
In a country such as South Africa, where the celebration of diversity stands central to the success of the country, the representation of race, class, culture, and ethnicity is distinctly approached in children's musical worlds. Educational media ("edutainment") produced for local broadcast, in the form of television and radio programming, directly impacts children's musical voices and the musical elements of this programming endeavor to overcome barriers of language, race, culture and class. In addition, ideas, thoughts, and newsworthy information are filtered into children's musical languages through the distribution of media in urban and rural areas. This paper explores ideas that have surfaced from my research on children's music and the media in South Africa and addresses the issues children express through their creative musical output. Music is indicative of the continuing social transformation in South Africa, and the manner in which children create, disseminate, and consume music represents the significant impact of media on the musical lives of children in both rural and urban South Africa.
Andrea Emberly recently completed her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at the University of Washington in 2009 where she focused on the musical cultures of childhood in Venda and Pedi cultures in Limpopo, South Africa. Her dissertation explores the intersections of local, national and global influences on children’s musical cultures including community music making, handclapping games, school music curriculums and television programs. She conducted field research in South Africa from 2005-2007 and recently returned to South Africa in 2009 to collect additional research as a part of the Communicative Human Musicality Project at the University of Western Australia.
Andrea is from Alberta, Canada and came to the University of Western Australia in September 2009. In her former life she studied classical trumpet performance at the University of Alberta and Illinois State University. She was inspired to shift her focus to ethnomusicology and now enjoys learning new handclapping games from the around the world and watching Bert and Ernie sing songs in different languages.