Jews harps, once widely performed in and around Mozambique, have been reintroduced as a method to stimulate women's narratives. Photograph: Mduduzi Mcambi
Ethnomusicology is the study of music in its social and cultural contexts. It is a study that links musical practices and their meanings to a broad range of related concerns: oral history, social and economic practices, religion, gender, health, local knowledge systems, to name a few, writes Angela Impey
Ethnomusicologists believe that music is a potent communication system that provides a particularly important voice in situations where other forms of expression may be prohibited or considered emotionally inadequate.
Sound, perhaps more than any of the other senses, has an enveloping, immersive quality that evokes a sense of self, identity, and social connectedness. It is, therefore, able to stimulate communication in a more sensual, lived, layered way.
In light of calls from the development/aid sector for a more holistic approach to communication, music (through the experiences and meanings it evokes) has considerable potential to assist in sustainable development projects.
First, music operates as a vital form of oral testimony. It helps recover memories about difficult or traumatic events, in raising self-awareness, and in the reconstruction of suppressed personal stories.
Displacement, loss, resettlement - and the major traumas these usually involve - deeply affect the way people view themselves. In Katine, the daily struggle to survive conceivably leaves those affected by the Lords Resistance Army incursions in 2003 little space to reflect on their experiences.
Often, in this context, conventional interviews will produce singular, undifferentiated narratives; songs and dances, on the other hand, have the tendency to evoke powerful memories, which in turn encourage people to share their stories.
Second, song lyrics and song repertoires are a form of oral history. The African historian Megan Vaughan, for example, found vital evidence of the way different people survived severe famine in Malawi in the 1940s in women's agricultural and food preparation songs. The details recounted in these songs - recorded nowhere in formal administrative records - have proved invaluable to the establishment of more gender-sensitive and culturally apposite relief services in the region.
Third, the sharing of experiences provides a powerful focus for mobilising collective evocations of self and senses of belonging; of building cooperation between people, and in serving to give voice to, and empower the silenced.
In Katine, this could happen through the collection by high school pupils of the songs and narratives of their elders. It could contribute toward the establishment of a "living library", supported by the concept of "talking/singing and being listened to". Such an initiative has the potential to encourage self-reflection, to build self-worth, and to stimulate the transfer of knowledge between generations and different members of the community.
Finally, music is a particularly effective medium through which difficult or shameful issues may be more openly discussed, negotiated, and ultimately acted upon. The use of music in HIV/Aids education has already proved successful in Uganda, and ethnomusicologist Gregory Barz has made fascinating observations of the role of women in mobilising preventative action in their communities.
Much of their efficacy, he suggests, has been based on their strategic use of male music to share information about the virus, thus drawing on local cultural values (manifest in the use of certain drums and rhythms) to call attention to the urgency of the disease.
More often than not, music is regarded by the development sector as an add-on - a "soft" medium used to complement more serious methodologies aimed at measurable outcomes.
While many organisations may recognise the significance of communication in the shaping of development work, I argue that music - which has a more unrestrained, yet multifaceted function in most African societies - remains a vital, yet largely unexplored, resource, with potential relevance at all stages of the development process.
In the spirit of this assertion, I would welcome feedback by others who may have used music in development initiatives.
• Angela Impey is a lecturer in Ethnomusicology in the department of music at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
