Digitizing Performance

Since the late 2000s, mobile phones have become central to everyday life in Africa, including in rural areas with limited infrastructure. As the most widespread digital tool and primary gateway to the internet, they are now deeply embedded in social life and a key focus of anthropological inquiry. This special issue brings together anthropologists, historians and ethnomusicologists to examine how digital communication technologies reshape the circulation of sounds and images of performance. We argue that while these processes often follow historical patterns rooted in earlier forms of contact and sound reproduction, they also raise new social, political and aesthetic questions in the context of digital sharing. The contributions explore the circulation and storage of performance across diverse African contexts, showing how digital files transform entertainment, interpersonal relations and engagements with the past. They foreground digital files as agents of political action, shaping identities and framing conflict. By focusing on the digitization of performance, this issue addresses a gap in the literature and opens new perspectives on contemporary modes of musical circulation and consumption in Africa. Read more