The Sounds of Silence- Cross-World Communication and the Auditory Arts in African Societies

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The Sounds of Silence- Cross-World Communication and the Auditory Arts in African Societies

Discussion about this article

Please feel free to edit this section(click edit just above and to the right); type your comments here and sign them using the signature button. Don't forget to log in prior to editing. Alt-S will save your changes in lieu of clicking the button below. Leave one blank line between your discussion entries. --mf 17:18, 13 January 2006 (MST)

This might not be totally relevant, but it's something I thought of while doing this reading. The author seems to make certain assumptions about the beliefs of the people he's studying, namely that those beliefs are true. For example, that we can communicate with 'otherworld' beings and know what they sound like, let alone know that they exist, is taken for granted. Is this an example of treating sources as references? Is there a certain extent to which we need to make these kinds of assumptions when studying music and religion?--Gloria 09:33, 19 January 2006 (MST)

Yes, that struck me as well. It seems that by refraining to separate his own beliefs from those on which he is writing, he avoids the grey zone in the middle where more value judgements (which might not be acceptable to the reader) will be made. Of course, it is impossible to write without expressing one's opinion. --Jordanv 10:15, 19 January 2006 (MST)

In an age obsessed with 'objectivity', assuming a culture's beliefs are true, especially religious beliefs, might be considered more offensive than 'expressing one's opinion'. It would be easy for a reader to simply dismiss Peek's claims altogether because he/she finds otherwold communication too culture-specific a belief to be taken for granted in a relatively academic text. Yet without a certain amount of this, you would have to add 'they believe that...' at the beginning of every sentence. --Gloria 00:07, 31 January 2006 (MST)