Reading the Silences of the Text: Illustrations from Contemporary Luo Ohangla and Benga Performance

APA Citation: Okong’o, J. B., & Odongo, T. O. (2021). Reading the Silences of the Text: Illustrations from Contemporary Luo Ohangla and Benga Performance. Ngano: The Journal of Eastern African Oral Literature, 2, 122-130.

Abstract

This paper is a reflection on the alternative readings that popular cultural and oral texts invite. Illustrations are drawn from the analysis of song texts of contemporary Luo Ohangla and Benga music. Considering Derrida’s (1966) concept of ‘presence, absence and play of meaning’ Clifford Geertz’s (1973) notion of ‘Thick description’, and Bakhtin’s (1982) theory of the ‘dialogic of the text’, this study describes the relationship and significance of what the oral text ‘says’ and ‘what it does not say’; and how this affects the kinds of data that we collect and how we read it. In interpreting these song texts, we included responses from several fans of the two musicians who were selected through snowball and purposive sampling. By engaging in focus group discussions with these readers we showed how oral texts invite us not only to read the obvious but also to interrogate the silences and the contradictory voices in the rendition. The aim of this paper is therefore to explain why in the study of oral texts we need to take into account, not only the aspects and issues explicitly expressed but also those elements that are merely implied or even denied.