Mireille Rakotomalala

interesting book that I picked up only because I had done my Friday research in a library earlier, and I wanted something to read for a couple of hours.

I focused on the first half, discussing music in Madagascar from a cultural anthropology and historical development perspective, and it was interesting (for somebody who learned some music- a bit of piano- from a Western perspective) to see how music instruments and music notation can be culturally biased, and how cultural influences from abroad can gradually become embedded within a traditional cultural

the second half is more "technical", discussing finer details, and I only browsed and sampled it, as I did not have time (hence, I listed it as "to be read")

anyway, the interesting part of the book is the discussion, here and there, of how those trying to understand the culture but not belonging to it were sometimes carried away with their own biased interpretations (in other books and areas, there were famous examples of on-the-field scholars influencing locals, so that their "studies" were actually practically jokes by the "primitives" making fun of those coming from a "superior" culture), as it happens often; and how having locals applying the same theoretical and analysis toolset enabled local scholars to preserve and study from a local perspective… (más)