Sounding place in the western Maputaland borderlands

Abstract

This article draws on research conducted in western Maputaland, a remote region in the borderlands of South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland. It argues that sound and the affect of music-making represent a much under-utilised research resource in Africa, particularly in contexts of social and spatial rupture. As discursive modalities, they provide constructive entry points for understanding how personal and social identities are negotiated, how spaces or landscapes are constructed, and the ways in which these processes interrelate in the making of place. Building upon narratives inspired by the revival of the jews harp and two mouthbows – once widely performed in the area as walking instruments, but remembered now by elderly women only – the research utilises musical memory as a method to chart hidden geographies in a changing landscape. In so doing, it aims to raise the level of the voices of a people whose livelihoods and sociality may be at variance with broader environmental development processes in the region.