Abstract

Cities in Africa and beyond have been sites of conflicting and contradictory associations in human cultures from their very beginning. Some regard the African city as a place of hope and fulfilment, freedom and opportunity, while others view it as an emblem of cultural decay and a nexus of corruption, perversion, greed, destruction and death. In this article we explore these ambivalent attitudes towards the city and urban life by focusing on Malawian popular music. We examine ways in which the city and what it stands for is depicted in the music. We also analyse attitudes and associations that converge on the city as a place and how such attitudes reflect the heterogeneity and complexity of individual and collective human experience and emotions contained by the city. We address questions such as: What images of the city and city life emerge in Malawian popular music? What do these images tell us about notions of community, inequality, and poverty in postcolonial Malawi? How do the economic, structural, or material settings of Malawian cities shape perceptions of the city? In addressing these and related questions, we use concepts drawn from cultural studies and urban studies.

摘要

从一开始，非洲及其他城市就成为人类文化中相互冲突和矛盾的联系的场所。有些人将非洲城市视为充满希望，实现，自由和机会的地方，而另一些人则将其视为文化衰退的象征和腐败，变态，贪婪，破坏和死亡的联系。在本文中，我们将重点放在马拉维流行音乐上，探索对城市和城市生活的矛盾态度。我们研究了音乐中描绘城市及其代表的方式。我们还分析了在城市上聚合的态度和联想，以及这种态度如何反映城市所包含的个人和集体人类经验和情感的异质性和复杂性。我们解决的问题包括：马拉维流行音乐中出现了哪些城市和城市生活的图像？这些图像如何告诉我们有关后殖民马拉维的社区，不平等和贫困的概念？马拉维城市的经济，结构或物质环境如何塑造人们对城市的看法？在解决这些及相关问题时，我们使用从文化研究和城市研究中得出的概念。