Ignatia Madalane

BIOGRAPHY

Ignatia Madalane is a doctoral student at Stellenbosch University, pursuing Interdisciplinary Arts with the Africa Open Institute. She holds a Master of Music Research degree from the University of the Witwatersrand and has contributed to the field through publications in national and international journals. Her research interests encompass ubungoma, African spiritual practices, music (African and popular), music and identity, genre, performance, culture, and healing practices.

Her doctoral research is titled Whispers from the Underground: An Autoethnographic Exploration of Ukuthwasa. Grounded in Afrocentric and decolonial thought, the study centres African spiritual knowledge systems by examining ukuthwasa — the initiation process into ubungoma — from an insider perspective. Drawing on her lived experience as both an initiate (ithwasa) and a mentor (gobela), Ignatia’s work challenges long-standing colonial, anthropological, and psychological misrepresentations that have pathologised and misunderstood African spiritual practices. Her research affirms ubungoma as a legitimate, complex, and intellectually generative system of healing, spirituality, and knowledge-making.

PUBLICATIONS

 Journal Articles

Madalane, I., 2014. ‘Tsonga popular music: negotiating ethnic identity in ‘global’ music practices’. Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa, 11(1): 37–54.

Madalane, I., 2015. ‘From Paul to Penny: the emergence and development of Tsonga disco 1985–1990s’. African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music, 10(1): 150–179.

Madalane, I., 2018. ‘Wenzani wena? Riffing on ‘genres will not be mixed’. SAMUS: South African Music Studies, 36(1): 291–296.

Book Reviews

Madalane, I., 2025. The times do not permit: The musical life of Michael Mosoeu Moerane, by C. Lucia (2024). Johannesburg: Wits University Press. ISBN 978-1-77614-920-9 (print); 978-1-77614-922-3 (e-book). xxvii + 273 pp.

Madalane, I., 2016. Female voices from an Ewe dance-drumming community in Ghana: Our music has become a divine spirit (Book review). Muziki: Journal of Music Research in Africa, 13(2).

Madalane, I. 2015. John Collins: Fela: Kalakuta notes. Muziki: Journal of Music Research in Africa, 12(2):123-125.