Cairo and Rwanda 2012

Fieldwork as action research in Cairo and Kigali

• Cairo: action
  • Self-documenting culture: El Mastaba Center for Egyptian Folk Music, and especially Rango. Is this ethnomusicology? "Authentic" culture? I attended a Rango performance and was videotaped, appearing on Egypt's new Channel 25 a few days later. Reflect on relation of "fieldworker" and "field" in this case - who's studying whom?
  • Ana Masry and music (research, and performance) as constructor of unified identity of "Egyptianness", as well as something to study. [1][2]
• Rwanda: action
  • Beyond old identities towards "Rwandanness" only
    • Ishyo Arts Center in Kigali, and Mashirika (music/dance/drama activism)
  • Memory studies
    • Remembering and forgetting, conflict and violence, history and alt-history
    • Fieldwork as documentation of memory, and itself a form of remembering
    • Memorialization and ethnography
  • Conflict, memory, reconciliation in Rwanda (The Rwandan Genocide, and Memorial)
  • Mashirika, Rwandan performing arts company performing at the Ishyo Arts Center, utilizing various music and dance traditions to interpret history, construct national identity, and promote social progress in diverse areas (education, health, etc.). As they say on their website:
    
    Our mission: Mashirika's mission is to prove that performing arts is not only entertainment but a tool of social transformation and source of employment.
    
    
  • Conference: Conflict, memory, and reconciliation (Ismail's film)
  • images, video...