writings
reverberations
sounds
media and documentaries
ALI MAAXA
WRITER & RADIO & MEDIA
& ANTHROPOLOGIST
ABOUT ALIAli Maaxa is a Portland-based writer, radio host, musician, media maker and anthropologist. She has published books, articles, talks and films based in her decolonial fieldwork with arts communities throughout the Global South. Since 2002, she has leveraged her PhD in anthropology of media and music to teach and present her expertise globally, including topics from Southern hip-hop, digital Africa, global feminist theory, writing, and research methodologies. She has served as a fellow with the Mellon, Peacock, FLAS, and Wilgus foundations as well as national and global humanities centers.
An evolving research project on woman, water and song, trauma and freedom, mermaids and music
After years on college radio, I started DJing in clubs in San Francisco in 1999 and haven’t stopped! Mostly vinyl, deep cuts and dance classics, lots of global flavor.
An original piece I performed about my choice to give birth to my son to John Coltrane's _A Love Supreme_, on Alice Coltrane's birthday. My co-panelists included Greil Marcus, Josh Clover, Emily Lordi and Kim Mack.
The singers here are Binta Sarr Diop, her husband Moustapha Dieme and their friend Yaay Diouf, and they were involved in a year or so of planning and producing this work.
PROJECT PHILOSOPHYThe Archives in Sound project comes from a calling to offer archives from my fieldwork to the broader public; to publish new writing and media on feminisms, music, trauma, digital cultures and the arts; and to document my process as a community builder and healer in training. It is a feminist project that resists the barriers to producing creative work as a caregiver. As I age, I am determined to produce this work as an outsider to my former fields of academia and journalism. It is a proud counterpart to my day job in tech, which has allowed me to sustain my role single mom/sole parent to my son, Serene.
CURRENT PROJECTSThis is my work in flight, emerging projects, new ideas. Feel free to reach out.
Sponsored Podcast: Reverberations
New DJ mixes and emerging sounds
Writing Series: Connection, Creativity and the Landscape of Trauma
Archives: Fieldwork with women praise singers in west Africa, 2008-2012
“Adoption is a portal in the shape of my biography. Motherhood is a cord that ties my child to this history.”
Ali Maaxa • “The Medium of Adoption”