Skinner, Ryan

July 25, 2008 by rskinner

(B.A. magna cum laude 2000, French and Francophone Studies, Carleton College; M.A. 2005, M.Phil. 2006, Ph.D. 2009, Ethnomusicology, Columbia University) studies musical performance, listening, space, sound, subjectivity, and ethics in Africa and its European and American diasporas. Ryan recently defended his dissertation (Artistiya: Popular Music and Personhood in Postcolonial Bamako, Mali) on popular musical expression, artistic personhood, and postcolonial history in Mali, West Africa. He has also conducted and published studies on immigration, diaspora formation, and musical identity among West African communities in New York City.

Over the past ten years, Ryan has conducted extensive fieldwork in West Africa, Europe, and the United States, focusing on musical performance and listening practices among Mande peoples worldwide. In his Master’s Thesis, “Jeliya in New York City: An Ethnography of Space, Travel, and Practice in Urban America” (2005), Ryan discusses the interrelation of migratory experiences, musical expression, and cultural identity in the Mande diaspora of New York City. In an article, "Determined Urbanites: Diasporic Jeliya in the 21st Century" (Mande Studies Vol. 6, 2004), Ryan elucidates a modern "culture of travel" among West African musicians practicing an increasingly global tradition of praise singing, instrumental performance, storytelling, and dance known as jeliya. A forthcoming article in the journal Popular Music (29/1, 2010), "Civil Taxis and Wild Trucks: The Dialectics of Space and Subjectivity in Dimanche à Bamako" presents a close reading (or listening) of Amadou & Mariam’s most recent album, Dimanche à Bamako (2004), meaning "Sunday in Bamako," produced "by and with" world music maverick Manu Chao. The article considers how the album musically renders, through sound and lyrical expression, the tensions of what may be called "global modernity" in postcolonial Africa and its diasporas. Ryan is also the author an illustrator of the children's book Sidikiba's Kora Lesson (Beaver's Pond Press, 2008), describing kora apprenticeship in contemporary Mali.

Ryan’s current dissertation work focuses on the musical politics and poetics of personhood in postcolonial Bamako, Mali. Specifically, his study engages with a particular community of urban artists – popular musicians – whose lives and works are locally glossed by the Bamana term “artistiya,” a neologism meaning “artistic personhood.” As a study of personhood among artists in Bamako, Ryan's work emphasizes the particular ethical concerns that artists daily confront in a postcolonial society structured by clientelism, plagued by corruption, and burdened by poverty. Fieldwork for this project was supported by dissertation research fellowships from the Social Science Research Council (International Dissertation Research Fellowship) and Wenner-Gren Foundation. Data analysis and write-up have been supported by a fifth-year dissertation writing fellowship from the Department of Music (Columbia University) and a Charlotte W. Newcombe Dissertation Writing Fellowship (Woodrow Wilson Foundation). Learn more about Ryan's other projects here.
Email: rts2104@columbia.edu

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