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Singing Ebola: Music, Media, and the Politics of Participation in West Frica

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Singing Ebola: Music, Media, and the Politics of Participation in West Frica Florida State University Libraries 2017 Singing Ebola: Music, Media, and the Politics of Participation in West Africa Michael Perez Rivera Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] 1 THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MUSIC SINGING EBOLA: MUSIC, MEDIA, AND THE POLITICS OF PARTICIPATION IN WEST AFRICA By MICHAEL PEREZ RIVERA A Thesis submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in the Major Degree Awarded: Summer, 2017 2 The members of the Defense Committee approve the thesis of Michael Perez Rivera defended on March 28th, 2017. Signatures are on file with the University Honors Program. ______________________________ Dr. Jane Piper Clendinning Co-Thesis Director ______________________________ Dr. Joseph Hellweg Co-Thesis Director Outside Committee Member ______________________________ Dr. Frank Gunderson Committee Member 3 Acknoledgements Ever since the first Ebola song hit NPR two years ago, numerous people have helped bring this project to its final development. I foremost want to thank my research collaborator and companion in the field, Dougo Guilavogui. Without his generous help and guidance, I would have never found amazing reseach contacts or learn to adjust to life in Guinea as quickly as I had. Many thanks also to Mamadou Barry, Michel Goépuigui, Zawagui, and the rest of the teams at AJARM and CCFG, for their willingness to show me their art and for their efforts against the Ebola epidemic. To Bill and Teta and the library staff at the U.S. Embassy in Conakry for helping me to expand my contact list and making me feel welcome in Conakry while I was so far away from home. I would also like to thank my various hosts (Julien, Mathilde, Florentin, Crystelle, and Gaossou) for their hospitality and in helping me find my way around the city. My travel would not have been possible without the help of the staff at the Office of Undergraduate Research. I am grateful for Scott and Ina McNichols and their generous travel grant that allowed for such an amazing opportunity. A special thanks to Josh Stanek for providing excellent critiques of my grant proposal and to Latika Young for being a supportive resource throughout the process. I owe so much to my thesis committee; it has been an enormous privilege to work with such a brilliant team of scholars. As an undergraduate, I am honored that these professors took the time and effort to constantly challenge me to be better. To my thesis director, Dr. Jane Piper Clendinning, you offered such invaluable guidance in helping me begin my project and organize my thoughts along the rest of the way. To Dr. Frank Gunderson, I am grateful for your initial critiques, which challenged me to do better research and think more critically. Finally, to Dr. Hellweg, I have gained an enormous sum of academic and practical knowledge under your 4 thoughtful guidance. Your dedicated passion for your field is one of the main reasons I have decided to pursue graduate studies in anthropology. I would also like to thank the many friends and colleagues who have offered intellectual and emotional support as well as critiques of my work. Thanks to Chelsea Henley for helping me with French email communications. I also would like to mention Kelly Vasbinder; it was your own undergradate and doctoral level work that inspired me to pursue an honors thesis in the first place. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Filamor and Maria, and my family for their enduring and unconditional support. 5 CONTENTS Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………. 3 Contents………………………………………………………………………………………. 5 List of Figures………………………………………………………………………………… 6 I. INTRODUCTION: PUBLIC HEALTH MUSIC SCENES IN AFRICA…………………… 7 Background…………………………………………………………………………….. 8 Ebola Virus Disease (EVD)……………………………………………………………. 8 Literature Review and Theoretical Framework………………………………………... 9 Project Design and Methodology……………………………………………………… 13 Research Collaborator ………………………………………………………………….. 13 II. MUSIC AND MEDIA: THE ETHNOPOETICS OF PUBLIC HEALTH PROMOTION…. 15 Analytical Approach …………………………………………………………………… 16 NGO Music Campaigns: Liberian Ministry of Health, UNICEF, Crusaders for Peace.. 17 “Ebola Song”…………………………………………………………………… 18 Independent Ebola Song: Shadow, D-12, and Kuzzy of 2 Kings………………………. 24 “Ebola in Town”……………………………………………………………….. 25 III. THE POLITICS OF PARTICIPATION: A CASE STUDY OF EBOLA SONG CAMPAIGNS IN CONAKRY, GUINEA …………………………………………….………. 34 Geographical Context of Guinea………………………………………………............. 36 Foreign and Transnational NGOs……………………………………………………… 38 Locally Based NGO: AJARM………………………………………………………….. 40 The Challenges of Fieldwork: Scaling the Fence of Public Health Research………….. 46 IV. CONCLUSION: RECONSTRUCTING DEVELOPMENT……………………………….. 50 Acronyms…………………………………………………………………….……………....…. 54 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………. 55 6 List of Figures 1- UNICEF Ebola Poster 2- Structural Outline of “Ebola Song” 3- Structural Outline of “Ebola in Town” 4- Africa Stop Ebola Logo 5- Kofi Annan University 6- Map of Guinea 7- Rehearsal at AJARM 8- Ebola Wall Outside Sonfonia University 7 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION: PUBLIC HEALTH MUSIC SCENES IN AFRICA During the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, local musicians composed and performed music to combat mistrust of and misinformation surrounding the disease. Many artists participated in Ebola music campaigns live and online, either through independent projects or through funding by local political organizations like non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Popular Western news sources like NPR, the Washington Post, and the Guardian broadcasted the opportunity and success of these music campaigns, while highlighting the challenges of health communication during the epidemic. Previous research on public health music suggests that when musicians are sponsored by these Western-based NGOs, their creative processes often become entangled with larger development agendas, many of which implement neoliberal capitalist ideologies rooted in globalization and neocolonialism.1 This relationship between NGOs and local musicians often operate under uneven power dynamics where local artists may feel pressured to negotiate their creative and communicative roles.2 I argue that in spite of these enticing and transient financial opportunities presented by Western aid projects, local independent initiatives offer a valuable yet overlooked method of knowledge dissemination while provding a means for local empowerment, mobilization, and collaboration. Such initiatives speculate an opportunity to promote local arts familiar to indigenous communities and focus on long-term sustainability over one that seeks only to alleviate in the moment. 1 Morin, Matthew Mcnamara. “Composing Civil Society: Ethnographic Contingency, Ngo Culture, And Music Production in Nairobi Kenya.” PhD diss., Florida State University, 2012. 2 Pier, David G. “Missionaries for Capital: Brand Marketers and Music Sponsorship in Uganda.” In Globalization and Socio-cultural Processes in Contemporary Africa, edited by Eunice N. Sahle. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. 199-224. 8 Drawing on a detailed analysis of two Liberian Ebola songs collected from the Internet, as well as participant-observation of concerts and oral histories with local musicians in Conakry, Guinea, I explore how these artists and production teams responded to the Ebola crisis while they sought to preserve their sociocultural identities in an increasingly globalized world. I also suggest how international NGOs as well as local artists and their communities might reach better levels of collaboration, cultural communication, and knowledge dissemination in future disease outbreaks. Background In 2014, the world experienced its largest outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). Previously, the disease had only been confined to Central Africa. The countries most affected by the disease were Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. Due to previous political instabilities and weak health systems, the virus took hold quickly and spread violently. In response to mistrust and misinformation, public health officials designed Ebola outreach campaigns to prevent disease transmission. Several of these campaigns implemented musical involvement through participatory schemes such as song competitions. Ebola Virus Disease The Ebola virus was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1976, near the namesake river where the first document outbreaks occurred (at the same time as the Ebola outbreak in South Sudan). Health experts believe that the original hosts of the Ebola virus were fruit bats, which eventually transferred the pathogen into the human population. The Ebola Virus Disease is caused by contracting the virus by coming into contact with any of the bodily fluids or secretions of infected persons or animals (i.e. bushmeat, particularly of primates and bats). 9 Since the diagnosis can be challenging to differentiate from that of like malaria or meningitis, lab tests are necessary to confirm an Ebola infection. Symptoms of the EVD appear between two and twenty-one days of exposure and initially include headaches, muscle pains, and fever. In the later stages, individuals will show signs of vomiting, diarrhea, and rash. This condition is highly deadly and has a mortality rate of 90%.3 While there is no treatment for EVD, researchers have attempted to develop experimental vaccines such as ZMapp
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