Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 332

Part of Session 193: Transcultural networks and neighborhoods (Other abstracts in this session)

67 ha and the city of Antananarivo – perspectives on transcultural hubs in Africa

Authors: Meinhof, Ulrike Hanna
Submitted by: Meinhof, Ulrike Hanna (University of Southampton, United Kingdom)

My paper investigates the multiple ways in which a district in the Malagasy capital of Antananarivo, called 67 ha because of its physical size, acts as a ‘spatial hub’, linking rural and metropolitan spaces in the country with those in other continents through the mobility of artists. It thus complements the other much better known and more frequently studied spatial hubs in the global North – e.g. capital cities such as London, Paris or Berlin. Based on my own multi-sited fieldwork and narrative interviews with migrant musicians across Africa and Europe the district of 67 ha emerges as a major focal point in people’s life trajectories where incoming and outgoing artists often from very remote regions of Madagascar are hoping to intersect with key individuals (‘human hubs’) and key institutions (‘institutional hubs’), that may determine their professional success and potentially their transnational mobility. My paper analyses the interplay between these ‘hubs’ as they emerge in representative stories of musicians moving in and across Madagascar and Europe.

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Programme: accepted abstracts

67 ha and the city of Antananarivo – perspectives on transcultural hubs in Africa