Next, I will approach the intriguing ethical aspects of balafon’s unconventional usage from two angles: the sociocultural meaning for the Mande peoples and those familiar with their tradition, and the symbolic, contextual meaning for those who are not. In other words, I will open up what the balafon stands for to the peoples whose cultural heritage it represents and then ponder on its symbolic significance in foreign eyes. Given that the balafon is generally recognised as a traditional African instrument, its mere physical appearance may be enough to arouse preconceptions in audiences about how it should be played and by whom.
These phenomena may be viewed through the lens of affordance theory: how the use and meaning of an object are defined, particularly reflecting upon when an instrument's cultural ties are loosened enough for it to be re-imagined as a vehicle for artistic creativity. I will unpack the concept of affordance theory further in the following sections.
Jalis, me, and nyama
Balafon and kora are instruments of the jalis, a caste in the social hierarchy of the Mande peoples in pre-colonial West Africa. The role of the jalis included preserving oral tradition, storytelling, recounting the noble deeds of both their present and past patrons and, last but not least, musicianship, which entitled them to play the hereditary jali instruments. (E.g., Williams, 2006, pp. 26–28; Feder, 2021, pp. 2–3; Piškor, 2001, pp. 43–48; Charry, 2000, p. 43; Jessup, 1983, pp. 12–15). To some extent, traces of this ancient hierarchy can still be seen, particularly in that the majority of the practitioners of these instruments still bear jali surnames.
The art of balafon and kora was, and still primarily is, passed on within the family, from generation to generation, and more particularly from men to boys, as playing these instruments was reserved solely for the male gender (e.g., Williams, 2006, pp. 28–29; Piškor, 2001, pp. 51–57). Male jalis had their roles, as did the females. Outsiders could and would not enter this closed circle – why would they, in an established social hierarchy? However, over time, globalisation and increased travelling may occasionally create new openings. I found one in an open-minded master jali, curious to see how a complete outsider with a foreign lineage and of incorrect gender could learn a guarded family tradition.
In Dakar in the early 90s, Jali Alsegny Camara gave me the basic traditional training of a balafola apprentice. He repeatedly stressed that what he taught me was the “genuine stuff” and not “makeshift whatever to part the tourists with their money”. I vaguely understood that I was being initiated into what felt like a circle of secrecy, although it would take me years to fathom more of its implications. Joe Williams (2006, p. 63–68) aptly describes this guarding of the hereditary arts, summarising that a jali must “undergo years of rigorous apprenticeships, guard his traditional knowledge carefully, and be very careful to whom and how much he reveals his knowledge” (Williams, 2006, p. 65). My teacher took the initiation quest seriously, making it a point of honour not to ask me to pay anything for the tuition and offering me daily meals at his house, thus equating me with the other apprentice, who was his nephew. When the months of intense training were over, he rinsed my hands with green herbal liquid in what seemed like a spiritual ritual, solemnly declaring that this was it, I was ready. “This is as much as anyone gets. Now you go and discover the rest.”
Without an inherited family network, accumulating additional instrumental knowledge and absorbing their multifaceted societal connotations has been a challenge. On the other hand, being an outsider has some advantages. Mande women are expected to fulfil their social roles and conduct their lives accordingly, whereas their toubab peers (a non-offensive name for the foreigners), without similar family support, but also without similar expectations, are allowed to behave differently, as a sort of wild card in the deck. This might include spending their days learning traditionally male instruments like the balafon, for example.
From a sociocultural perspective, instruments are more than objects. Jali instruments are emblematic indicators mirroring one’s rank and role in a community, and playing them amounts to so much more than mere technical execution. The act of playing is a participatory, active and ongoing social dialogue, a way of marking important milestones in people's lives and preserving the ancestral heritage. In a wider societal range, the instruments become culturally identifying factors, solidifying a sense of belonging both in the original homeland and global diaspora. Considered capable of “unifying cultural construct” and “withstanding the threats brought by cultural occupation and contemporary globalization” (Williams, 2006, p. 18), the jali instruments are powerful symbols layered with multifarious meanings. Reflecting the spiritual beliefs of their creators, their influential range reaches from this world to the intangible one, as on top of their other skills the jalis were believed to be able to channel the nyama, the omnipresent supernatural force (Wise, 2006, pp. 19–38; Williams, 2006; Charry 2000, pp. 49-50). The nyama could be harnessed for beneficial or malicious purposes and released in multiple ways, typically through speech or singing. A well-versed jali like my mentor could apparently even capture it in a green magic potion. Playing an instrument was an especially effective way to wield it, as “this spiritual force resides in the balafon to be awakened by the musician who releases the nyama” (Williams, 2006, 18).
However, as questioned in the chapter “Never alone”, would the hidden spiritual dimension be capable of travelling, or would its potential wither in the absence of a reinforcing environment? Inevitably, the symbolic representation of these instruments changes on foreign soil, as the force of the nyama gets reduced to questioningly raised eyebrows. This drastic change in perception parallels the key arguments of the affordance theory, which I will now outline further.
Angle on affordances
First introduced by James J. Gibson back in 1977, the affordance theory claims that we do not perceive objects solely according to their axiomatic purpose but also based on what they mean to us (Gibson, 2014, pp. 119-135). If a thing is shaped, seems and feels like something you would sit on, you use it as a chair. As the object grows more complex, varied ways of use become possible. Applied to musical instruments, the argument could be, for example, that a flute is a flute only if we know that one can produce melodies with it; otherwise, it may be seen as an impractical drinking tube.
However, Gibson, as far as is known, was not thinking of flutes when formulating his theses. Having overlooked other prospects as well, his original version of the theory has been criticised as limiting (e.g., Tullberg, 2022; Sun & Suthers, 2021; Shaw et al., 2019; Windsor & De Bézenac, 2012), disregarding, aspects like the influence of cultural values and meanings, for example (Sun & Suthers, 2021, p. 3019). Consequently, several researchers have felt the need to broaden the concept for wider application. Cultural sociology grounded in the theory of affordances “makes visible the relationality and reflexivity in interactions between objects and people,” allowing “richer accounts of the polyvocality of objects” (McDonnell, 2023, p. 202). Still, as Tullberg (2022) brings forth, and my attempts to find recent publications suggest, the theory of affordances has not yet been extensively applied to musical instruments. This shortcoming “restraints its analytical potential to explore, describe and explain the complex ways that musicians interact with their instrument” (Tullberg, 2022, p. 03). Therefore, on the bones of the theory, Tullberg lays what he calls a musical niche, which takes into account the acoustic dimension, aesthetic value systems, institutional framings, historical background, and music’s role in society (Tullberg, 2022, p. 04), which are all inspiring angles from my research point of view. But despite promisingly listing such a multifaceted sphere of influence, Tullberg ends up calibrating his focus on musicians’ sensorimotor interaction with their instruments, whereas I wish to zoom the lens on their intricate sociocultural connotations.
Subscribing to the aforementioned sociocultural view and stretching the scope of the original theory onto culturally bound musical instruments, I argue that meaning introduces an entire world of individual viewpoints based on personal background and life experiences. Consequently, an object’s perception becomes dependent on the perceiver along with their societal, educational, and cultural status. Layers and layers of collectively agreed-upon uses and culturally variable connotations take the entire game of affordances to a whole new level, outlining a framework on how to handle, treat, relate to and feel about an object – or, more specifically, a musical instrument. These subliminal guidelines steer our preconceived expectations about how and in what context we expect an instrument to be played, what it ought to sound like, and who we anticipate seeing playing it.
The complex ways in which musical instruments are interconnected with the customs and beliefs of their originating culture is a fascinating subject. Much has been written about their value as aids for maintaining hereditary habits and as reinforcers of social identity, their role in forming a “bridge between the tangible and the intangible” (Howard, 2022, p. 41), but publications focusing explicitly on the loosening of this cultural tether are considerably more scarce. The colonial world conquest inevitably played a key role in promoting certain instruments as universal tools adaptable to any style of music. Guitar and bass, for example, are today considered neutral auxiliaries for creative innovation, while learning about their background requires diving into library archives. For the purpose of this study, a closer, not equally generic, but at least an indicative example can be found in djembe. Djembe is easily the most variably used instrument of Mande origin. Heard in African and non-African music alike, it is nowadays included in the basic percussion toolkit in many educational institutions, whereas its relatives, kora and balafon, remain more closely tied to their roots.
My own experience as a performer has reflected the issues related to affordance theory, with the perception of the balafon shifting in different circumstances and physical locations. At times a respected marker of social role rich in spirituality and tradition; other times a musical immigrant, fascinating as a curiosity, but alien all the same, its nyama – if you want to call it that – a mere wistful memory. This dichotomy may be interpreted as at least partly stemming from the ongoing controversy over cultural appropriation issues.
Concerning appropriation
But what is it, this thing called cultural appropriation? We know that dropping the term into a conversation raises sparks, but how do we actually understand the concept? Although sometimes defined all-encompassingly as “any use of something developed in one cultural context by someone who belongs to another culture” (Young, 2008, p. 5; see also Rogers, 2006), the consensus of the day focuses on its harmful implications: cultural appropriation occurs when a dominant culture adopts elements of another culture placing them outside their original context in an exploitative, disrespectful or stereotypical way, typically at the expense of the source culture for personal gain (e.g., Lenard & Balint, 2020; Britannica, 2023).
The first written publication of the term is credited to Arthur E. Christy, dating as early as 1945 (Christy et al., 1945, p. 39; Lin, 2022, p. 1). However, it was roughly around the turn of the century that the term began to rise to prominence, by 2019 garnering millions of online searches (Siems, 2019, p. 2). From the sociologists’ recommendations that cultures “should have clear and definite boundaries” (Rieff, 1970, as cited in Fosler-Lussier, 2020, p. 229), we have progressed to conclude that “instances of border-crossing or musical borrowing are more norm than exception” (Fosler-Lussier, 2020, p. 202). In the 21st century, the waves surge high. We have witnessed practitioners of various fields of art apologising for their work dating way back when what was acceptable differs from now. Examples are myriad: actors regretting their past roles (Kallioniemi & Siivikko, 2020), merchants selling but customers hesitating to purchase jewellery labelled as cultural property (Aikio, 2021), singers facing criticism for braiding their hair in cornrows (Nyman, 2021; Jackson, 2019), just to name a few.
As a rule, the debate around the topic is characterised by recrimination (Lenard & Balint, 2020; Jackson, 2019, p. 2), which is why it felt refreshing to stumble upon Kofi Agawu’s (2016) positive input. Undeniable violations aside, Agawu sees the widespread appropriation of his home continent’s cultural products as proof of Africa’s vast musical resources providing an invaluable source for intercultural creativity. Praising the resilience and adaptability of African art, he proudly summarises that it “may well hold the key to humanity’s musical future” (Agawu, 2016, p. 335).
My use of the balafon meets the "any object" condition of the broadest definition by Young (Young, 2008, p. 5). But stereotypical it is not, nor does it exploit intellectual property, as all my approcreations are self-composed. But, bearing in mind the aspect of cultural dominance, the thefts of Sub-Saharan cultural artefacts in the colonial past, and the ongoing effects of colonialism discussed earlier in this article, what kind of image does a musician of European complex behind a West African balafon conjure up? As far as visual expectations are concerned, Matthias Krings (2015) reports that excessive whiteness has caused even African-born artists to be dropped from festival organisers' lists: “...white performers of African music are considered 'wannabe' Africans, as they do not conform to the image of the exotic other” (Krings, 2015, p. 248). Such exoticising of cultural practices is yet another form of cultural appropriation (Oh, 2024, p. 31) pointing to the earlier mentioned problematic power dynamics stemming from historical injustices.
Not limited to the auditory sense only, music is also absorbed through the eyes, with subliminal preconceptions influencing our emotional reactions. As Krings points out, on multicultural stages, it is still considered preferable for the music and the musicians to represent visibly similar ethnic backgrounds. This has repeatedly proved true in my case as well. Pursuing exoticism, rather than focusing solely on the level of artistry, is damaging both by dehumanising and trivialising the artistic values of the source culture and by prioritising performers’ external appearance over the content of their art.
In the coming times, we may find our attitudes shifting towards more respectful intercultural inspiration and better equality in power relations and opportunities. Or perhaps we will backtrack, digging ourselves deep into trenches of intolerance. As in this day and age, we are witnessing signs of both trends, the outcome remains to be seen. In the meantime, the Approcreations-concert was an attempt to capture an attitudinal snapshot of this very moment in time.
