Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses so-called “cultural programs” that broadcast “local” musical genres on rural radio stations in Mali’s southwest to reflect on the relevance of these radio stations to constructions of community and belonging, and thus to the constitution of a particular political subjectivity.

Paper long abstract:

The paper discusses so-called "cultural programs" that broadcast what are considered "local" musical genres on rural radio stations in Mali's southwest to reflect on the relevance of these radio stations to constructions of community and belonging, and thus to the constitution of a particular political subjectivity. Taking as a key metaphor the notion of "resonance", the paper examines the role of local radio stations in making local music into "musical heritage", by mediating feelings of local particularity and attachment. In the contemporary context of a "resurgence of the local", invigorated by decentralization politics, musicians who perform "local" musical heritage in Mali's rural southwest draw new strength and symbolic appeal from the existence of local radio stations. Listeners in southwestern Mali, by engaging with programs that feature "local tradition" and music, come to view themselves as citizens of a "multi-composite" national community. Their media engagements can be considered as particular moments of nation-building, moments in which national community, as well as other community constructions, are made - and contested - through everyday practice. Probing the process of aesthetic appreciation by which listeners recognize broadcast jeli music as "their own tradition", the paper offers reflections of a broader relevance about the affective power of mass-mediated aesthetic forms and about their capacity to generate attachment and collective identification.