Sociology news
East African Hip Hop book highlights youth music culture
Mwenda Ntarangwi, associate professor of anthropology, has authored a book entitled East African Hip Hop: Youth Culture and Globalization. In this book, Mwenda Ntarangwi analyzes how young hip hop artists in the East African nations of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania showcase the opportunities and challenges brought by the globalization of music. Combining local popular music traditions with American and Jamaican styles of rap, East African hip hop culture reflects the difficulty of creating commercially accessible music while honoring tradition and East African culture. Ntarangwi pays special attention to growing cross-border exchanges within East African hip hop, collaborations in recording music and performances, and themes and messages that transcend local geographic boundaries.
In using hip hop as a lens for viewing changes in East African political, economic, and social conditions, Ntarangwi reveals that music empowers youth to publicly engage with issues that directly affect them. Artists vocalize their concerns about economic policies, African identity, and political establishments, as well as important issues of health (such as HIV/AIDS), education, and poverty. Through three years of fieldwork, rich interviews with artists, and analysis of live performances and more than 140 songs, Ntarangwi finds that hip hop provides youth an important platform for social commentary and cultural critique and calls attention to the liberating youth music culture in East Africa.
"Where Am I Wearing?" author speaks at Calvin on Nov. 5
Kelsey Timmerman will speak at Calvin College on Thurs., Nov. 5, 2009, at 3:30 p.m. in the Commons Lecture Hall. Timmerman is the author of Where Am I Wearing? A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People that Make Our Clothes (Wiley, 2008). His book shows how globalization is far more complex a phenomenon than most North American consumers understand it to be. The morality of globalization resists easy reduction to black-and-white solutions, because there's no consensus about what, if anything, are its problems. As Timmerman chronicles his visits to garment factories in several Asian countries and the U.S., he presents a wide range of issues related to globalization, including labor rights (for adults as well as for children); poverty and economic development; environmental and public health concerns; corporate social responsibility; and political accountability and transparency. Where Am I Wearing? is an engaging and insightful personal account in which Timmerman tries to bridge the international chasm between producer and consumer.
This event is being presented by the department of sociology and social work, and is co-sponsored by the departments of biology, business, geography, geology, and environmental studies, international development studies, nursing, philosophy, political science and the Service-Learning Center. For more information, please contact Prof. Martin Hughes at (616) 526-6026 or mdh23@calvin.edu.
Introducing Jonathan Hill
The department of sociology welcomes Jonathan Hill, Ph.D. (University of Notre Dame 2008) as an assistant professor of sociology. After completing his graduate work, Jon held a position as a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Study of Religion and Society (CSRS) at the University of Notre Dame. His work at CSRS centered on studying the religious lives of emerging adults as part of the National Study of Youth and Religion and examining predictors of giving to religious and secular organizations as part of the center’s focus on the science of generosity.
Jon’s dissertation focused on religious practice and belief during the transition to adulthood with a particular focus on the effect of college attendance and graduation on religious life. Some of his findings were recently published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. He also has recent work on religious pluralism and the efforts of religious leaders to attract and retain adherents forthcoming in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. Jon’s works in progress include studying the relationship between science and religion among emerging adults, examining the effect of religious belonging on voluntary giving to secular causes, methodological innovations in the study of religious markets, developing and testing a measure of interpersonal religiosity, and continued work in the area of higher education and religion. Jon will be teaching Sociological Principles & Perspectives and Social Theory this year.