Feel It In Your Body : Hybridization of Musical Habitus in Swedish Cultural-Educational Tourism to Ghana

Abstract: On the surface the practice of African musics and dances in Sweden seems to be evidence of otherization and exoticization of African cultures. However, those Swedes of non-African background who do African musics and dances are genuinely engaged with the practice in the sense that they participate wholeheartedly and seem to both value and feel positive outcomes from their participation. This thesis explores how the body meets new ‘other’ musics and acquires new musicking practices, and how this is influenced by the body’s musical habitus as well as its own individual life experiences and emotional context. Additionally I look at the body’s role as an integral part of music, rather than as external to it. To illustrate this I use a case study of a group of Swedes on a cultural-eduational tourism trip to Ghana and my own first- hand experience with them learning choreographed dance based on traditional movements and rhythms, and Ewe polyrhythmic drumming. I show how discourses of difference resulting from historical contact, and previous individual experiences influence the encounter with new music, and how the body through social interactions perceives and acquires new musical practices, integrating them with known musical practices to form a kind of hybrid or new musical practice.