The Garifuna Music Reader is the first text to provide scholarly research of all the principal genres of music and music-related rituals of the Garifuna people of Belize and, by similarities in practice and tradition, those of Central America and the United States. This five unit, fourteen chapter anthology explores how the Garifuna interpret their identity, experiences, and existence through traditional songs and dances, contemporary popular music, world music, ancestor rituals, a Christmas processional, and a creolized version of the Catholic mass.
The reader is a compilation of new and previously published research by ethnomusicologists, historians, and anthropologists representing both Garifuna and non-Garifuna scholars. It includes website data, musical transcriptions, peer-reviewed journal articles, and chapters from books and dissertations. To aid in retention and comprehension and to meet the needs of scholars, professors, and students, questions follow each article. These questions address key content points, objectives and issues for contemplation, and encourage critical thinking and theoretical analysis.
The Garifuna Music Reader is designed to be used with the Garifuna page of the author's website, Music and Ritual in the African Diaspora, which includes audio-visual examples referenced in each chapter as well as answers to the chapter questions. Although the reader is designed for scholars and students of world music it is of value to research and courses in cultural anthropology, Caribbean studies, and African diaspora studies.
Oliver N. Greene holds a Ph.D. in musicology with an emphasis in ethnomusicology from Florida State University. He is an associate professor of music at Georgia State University where he teaches courses on world music, carnival traditions, and the history of American popular music. He has produced world music concerts, cultural festivals, and websites, and published articles in world music encyclopedias and journals. He has published chapters in Sun, Sea, and Sound: Music and Tourism in the Circum-Caribbean (2014) and The Garifuna, A Nation Across Borders: Essays in Social Anthropology (2006). As a recipient of a Rockefeller Fellowship at the Center for Black Music Research, he conducted fieldwork on the relationships between art, dance, and music among the Garifuna. He also produced the documentary film Play, Jankun Play: The Wanaragua Ritual of the Garifuna of Belize (2007).