Find a suggested list of resources and introductory readings for the Political Economy Teach-In session #20 on “Gender, Music and Social Change – Unravelling the Interconnections and Implications” to be held on February 27th at 1 pm UTC by Sumangala Damodaran. Register here!
Sumangala Damodaran is an economist and a scholar of popular music studies. She has archived the musical compositions of Indiaʼs anti-colonial and working-class music from a tradition known as the Indian Peopleʼs Theatre Association, which resulted in the book The Radical Impulse (2017) and an album titled Songs of Protest. Apart from her academic involvements, she is also a singer and composer. She has worked on precolonial AfroAsian connections using music as a lens, in collaboration with scholars and musicians from South Africa, Ethiopia, Zanzibar and China, producing several musical productions and two books.
Here you will find a suggested list of resources authored by Global South feminists and organised by language – English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. If you would like to access a more extensive list of resources on the topic or other feminist productions you can visit the South Feminist Knowledge Hub here. We invite you to send us any other resources that should be included in this reading list by filling out this form or emailing us at knowledgehub@southfeministfutures.org
Resources by Sumangala Damodaran [English]
Through this music album you will be immersed in the songs of protest composed between the 1940s and the 1950s by the Indian People’s Theatre Association and other organizations. All songs are performed by Sumangala Damodaran in four languages – Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi and Malayalam.
Prof. Damodaran gave examples of how music has been used to articulate resistance during the struggle for freedom from colonial subjugation and how later, after independence, the tradition has continued in different parts of the country. She performed popular songs from the 1940s to the present that have voiced resistance to the existing social and political order.
This book looks at concepts that form the core of development economics and political economy and brings together perspectives that explore the inextricable relationship between development and human rights, social movements and the call for social transformation.
This paper explores the role of music in shaping national and regional identities in rural contexts, particularly through the lens of historical events such as the Tebhaga peasant rebellion in Bengal. It examines how songs produced during significant agrarian movements, like those by the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA), serve as vehicles for political expression and cultural critique.
Arabic
Cheikha Kharboucha: The Aita poetry as a weapon against tyranny, Sheikha Khartousha
Palestinian Music Blending Levantine Sounds and the Power of Poetry, Suheil al-Khoury
From you and in you: Towards an atypical heritage, Moussa Saleh
English
The Revolution Is a Song! , Karsten Noko
“In their contributions to local African resistance, musicians today such as Uganda’s Bobi Wine, who face increasingly autocratic governments, draw from the legacies of older artists such as Fela Kuti, Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba.“
Miriam Makeba, A Voice for African Women’s Struggles, Capire Mov
Freedom Songs: the role of music in the anti-apartheid struggle
Shatta music, a new space for French West Indian feminism, Coraline Kandassamy
French
Miriam Makeba, A Voice for African Women’s Struggles, Capire Mov
Portuguese
From the bush to the stage: nation building in Mozambique through music, Sara Morais
Angola: musicality, politics and anti-colonialism (1950 – 1980), Amanda Palomo Alves
Spanish
The song is The Remedy: feminist and Latin American protest music, Katia Rejon
Magazine Catalogue #8: FEMINISMS AND ARTS, Collective Catalogue
BLACK VOICES. AN ORAL HISTORY OF AFRICAN POPULAR MUSIC, Tania Safura Adam
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