This project draws on collaborative ethnographic research in the Gambia (2006-present) to examine the role that music plays in promoting healthy communities. Focusing in particular on Muslim women performers, the research explores the way women have adapted indigenous musical healing practices to address contemporary public health challenges. In the face of political repression and economic austerity, women use music to address sensitive health topics, challenge gender inequality, and promote collective action. Focusing on the music of kanyeleng fertility societies as well as popular dance music, the research demonstrates that female performers navigate complex gendered expectations and religious restrictions to access new forms of power and influence in contemporary Gambia. (Funded by the Fulbright-Hays Program and the American Association of University Women.)

McConnell, B. 2020. Music, Health, and Power: Singing the Unsayable in the Gambia. New York: Routledge. Link: https://www.routledge.com/Music-Health-and-Power-Singing-the-Unsayable-in-The-Gambia/McConnell/p/book/9781032239965

McConnell, B. 2017. “Performing ‘Participation’: Kanyeleng Musicians and Global Health in The Gambia.” Ethnomusicology, vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 312-332. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/ethnomusicology.61.2.0312#metadata_info_tab_contents

McConnell, B, and B Darboe. 2017. “Music and the Ecology of Fear: Kanyeleng Women Performers and Ebola Prevention in The Gambia.” Africa Today, vol. 63, no. 3, pp. 28-42. https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/243972/1/01_McConnell_Music_and_the_ecology_of_fear%253A_2017.pdf

McConnell, B. 2016. “Music and Health Communication in The Gambia: A Social Capital Approach.” Social Science & Medicine, vol. 169C, pp. 132-140. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27721137/

View Bonnie McConnell's Researcher page. 

McConnell, B. 2015. “Performing Baadinyaa: Music, Emotion, and Health in The Gambia.” In Medical Ethnomusicology and Music Therapy. Special issue, Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, vol. 15, no. 3.  https://voices.no/index.php/voices/article/view/2291