Domesticating WhatsApp: Female fertility society performers and health promotion in the Gambia

Abstract

In the Gambia, female fertility societies known as kanyeleng are made up of women who have experienced infertility or the death of a young child. They employ musical performance and fertility ritual practices to support members and promote the health of women and babies. This paper examines the changing forms of creativity and connection practiced by kanyeleng performers through engagement with social media in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation conducted in person and online (2021–2022), we show that while WhatsApp provided an opportunity for kanyeleng to build new social connections and experiment with new forms of musical creativity, it also presented challenges, including inequities in access, and increased misinformation and mistrust of health workers. Going beyond formulations of domestication of technology within private home spaces, we theorise kanyeleng domestication as a process of incorporating social media into their existing ritual practice of claiming public space and power. Finally, we argue that understanding changing forms of communication and connectedness in the Global South demands new methodological approaches to engage participants whose voices are often marginalised in research on social media.

Keywords

communication for social change domestication Gambia gender health promotion music social media WhatsApp

Introduction

Kanyeleng fertility societies in the Gambia play an important role in health promotion activities. Through participatory music and dance events, kanyeleng encourage community engagement and mobilisation in response to health challenges. Health workers in the Gambia refer to kanyeleng performances as a form of ‘traditional communication’ that is accessible and widely appealing, particularly for rural communities (McConnell, 2019). Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in 2021–2022, this article examines the way kanyeleng participatory music activities were impacted by the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. We focus in particular on the changing forms of kanyeleng creativity and connection made possible through engagement with social media.

This research contributes new perspectives to scholarship on communication for social change by foregrounding the role of women’s performance groups in the context of increased engagement with social media. This project builds on a broader body of research (see McConnell, 2019) that examines music as a component of a culture-centred approach to health communication. As theorised by media researcher Mohan Dutta (2015), a culture-centred approach is needed to move away from top-down, one-size-fits-all interventions to build a response that is contextually appropriate, both in terms of the content that is communicated and in the way it is communicated.

Existing research on music and social media in Africa has been limited and has focused primarily on commercial popular music (Phyfferoen, 2020; Schoon, 2021) and music education (Cruywagen et al., 2022; Moses, 2021). The way in which kanyeleng performances and related community-based practices are adapted to social media spaces remains unexplored, yet vital for understanding changing dynamics of musical participation, communication and social relations of music making. Furthermore, while music making has a strong association with health promotion in this part of West Africa, the changes inspired by COVID-19 are not yet well understood.

As Cruz and Harindranath (2020) argue, there is a need for ‘ethnographic studies of technologies of life’ in the Global South that can account for the lived experiences of social media in particular social and cultural contexts, and avoid narrow assumptions about how people use technologies based on experiences in the Global North. Our research participants, including illiterate or semi-literate women living in rural Gambia, are not typically engaged in research on social media. Yet kanyeleng women are on the forefront of developing new forms of creativity and connection on WhatsApp that constitute an emerging ‘new orality’ (Royston, 2021) grounded in traditional knowledge and ritual, but also innovative and flexible. Our research explores the way kanyeleng groups ‘domesticate’ (Saho, 2012) social media spaces by experimenting with forms of participatory interaction and music making.

Kanyeleng communication and domestication

Kanyeleng fertility societies are comprised of women who have lived experience of infertility or the death of a young child. They serve as a form of support for members as well as an intervention to promote the health of women and babies (Hough, 2006; Anonymous, 2019). Kanyeleng have a special social status. While there is stigma associated with infertility, and kanyeleng with few or no children experience social marginalisation, at the same time, kanyeleng wield significant power and influence. They are able to joke around about serious topics and make fun of the powerful in ways that others cannot.

Kanyeleng community-based practices are multifaceted and varied. Firstly, kanyeleng are known for their expertise in fertility ritual to promote the health of women and babies. Their ritual practices involve participatory music and dance as a central component, alongside aspects of prayer, jokes and trickery (Hough, 2006; Anonymous, 2019; Saho, 2012). In addition to this established ritual practice, kanyeleng have also taken on partnerships with health organisations such as the Gambia’s Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.¹ In these newer roles, kanyeleng have regularly been engaged to sing songs about health issues such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, Ebola, breastfeeding practices, hygiene and more. Because of their existing expertise relating to reproductive health and their unique social position, kanyeleng are seen to be effective in communicating health information, particularly to rural women. In previous research conducted by McConnell (2019, 2017), the non-verbal aspects of kanyeleng performances, such as their ability to engage people through participatory music, were identified as central aspects of the health promotion process, in addition to lyrical messages communicated through songs. The current project sought to examine how these established kanyeleng performance practices were impacted by the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the extent to which kanyeleng were able to apply lessons learned through engagement with previous health programmes in their response to COVID-19. We focused in particular on the creative ways that kanyeleng negotiated changing forms of engagement with social media.

Because of the strong emphasis on active, in-person participation, kanyeleng music making is not easily adapted to social media spaces. In kanyeleng performances, everyone is expected and actively encouraged to be involved through singing, dancing and handclapping. This emphasis on active participation is key to their impact in promoting health and wellbeing, according to both kanyeleng themselves and the wider community (McConnell, 2017). Furthermore, kanyeleng conceptualisations of participatory action offer an important contribution to debates on communication for social change where community participation is the subject of enduring emphasis and critique (McConnell, 2017; Servaes, 2022; Wilkins et al., 2014).

Historian Bala Saho has argued that through their ritual practices, kanyeleng ‘domesticate spaces’ and that this ‘not only elevates their social standing in the larger Gambian society, but also permits them to control or define their lives’ (Saho, 2012: 103). Saho (2012) uses the term ‘domestication’ to refer to ‘processes through which [kanyeleng] colonize any space for the purpose of enacting rituals and then take control of this particular space, as if it were their own backyard or in local parlance, their own kitchen’ (p. 103). This process of domesticating physical spaces, as described by Saho, has been important in giving kanyeleng a platform of influence and challenging their marginalisation. Male dominated spaces, such as the village bantaba, are taken over by kanyeleng during their events as part of their broader practice of ritual inversion and assertion of authority. This takes place through a process that aims to cleanse participants of evil spirits to promote health.

While Saho theorises kanyeleng ritual domestication in relation to physical spaces, we argue that a similar process occurs when kanyeleng participate in male-dominated social media spaces. Kanyeleng practices of interaction and ritual (such as joking, greeting, prayers, and call and response singing) on WhatsApp groups enable them to domesticate the social media platform, transforming it into a kanyeleng space. This includes playful experimentation with the affordances and limitations of the platform.

Our analysis of kanyeleng domestication of WhatsApp contributes new perspectives to scholarship on domestication of technology (Hartmann, 2023). Going beyond formulations of domestication within private home spaces, we theorise kanyeleng domestication as a process of incorporating social media into their existing ritual practice of claiming public space and power. At the same time, we highlight the limitations of social media and the ongoing importance of in-person participatory music making as a means to support health promotion in the face of widespread misinformation and mistrust of health workers.

Methods

For this investigation, we engaged with performers and health workers across the five regions of the Gambia. Research methods included: (1) in-person interviews with 11 health workers; (2) in-depth focus group discussions conducted on WhatsApp with 11 kanyeleng performers and 7 health workers; and (3) participant observation in-person and on WhatsApp. Combined, our methodological approach enabled us to gain an understanding of the COVID-19 communication landscape in the Gambia, the role of kanyeleng performers, and changing forms of creativity and connection on social media.

Participant observation was conducted in person at COVID-19 communication events in the Western Region of the Gambia in 2021–2022. Events were video recorded for later analysis. Participant observation was also conducted on the National Traditional Communicators WhatsApp group (2021–2022). Observing kanyeleng activities in-person and on WhatsApp provided the research team with a broad understanding of musical practices and forms of social interaction in these spaces, informing our analysis of interview and focus group discussion data.

We employed WhatsApp as a research tool to help avoid ‘spatial biases’ that exclude people from rural, remote or marginalised communities from research participation (Chambers, 1983: 13; Heywood and Yaméogo, 2023). Previous research on WhatsApp as a research tool is limited. One important precedent for our approach is the work of Colom (2022) who employed a text-based focus group discussion format with youth activists in Kenya. Colom (2022) notes that potential benefits of the WhatsApp focus group format include ecological validity (because the research is more closely integrated with participants lives) and the potential for more ‘inclusive and equalising discussions’ (p. 464). Our approach also builds on the work of Heywood et al. (2022) who employed WhatsApp as a qualitative survey tool in conflict affected communities in the Sahel region. They note that the WhatsApp voice note function, neglected in existing scholarship, is particularly important when engaging women in settings such as the Sahel where literacy is low. Our approach employed the voice note function in WhatsApp to enable participants without literacy to contribute to the research and an asynchronous discussion design to facilitate inclusion of participants living in areas with unreliable network and electricity.

Discussions with kanyeleng groups were conducted in the Mandinka language, while discussion with health workers were conducted in English. Participants were provided with phone credit to facilitate their participation in the discussion. Questions were posted sequentially by a member of the research team in the form of a voice note recording and participants were invited to share their responses. All the researchers (the four co-authors) participated in the discussion by greeting participants, asking follow-up questions and exchanging ideas. We encouraged a relaxed and conversational exchange, and responses included light-hearted interactions among participants as well as between researchers and participants. Each discussion continued for approximately 14 days, with participants sharing their responses at times convenient to them.

The approach that we developed was designed to suit the needs of our participants and research context, informed by scholarship on mobile research as a tool to bring researchers ‘“closer” to the participant’s environment’ (Boase and Humphreys, 2018; Colom, 2022: 454). While previous research on online focus groups found that in some cases they may provide less high-quality data than in-person focus groups (Abrams et al., 2015), we found that the asynchronous WhatsApp focus group design encouraged in-depth responses and was effective in overcoming some (though not all) of the challenges in engaging rural and marginalised communities in research.

Our approach aimed to create a comfortable environment for participants to share their ideas and experiences with the researchers and other participants. Just as is important in face-to-face research (Guillemin and Heggen, 2009), the development of trust and rapport, and ethical considerations are important for the WhatsApp focus group format. In our project, this required making space for the greetings, prayers and jokes that characterise everyday interaction for kanyeleng women. This also required explicitly addressing the power dynamics within groups, reinforced for some participants by the technology itself, and working to ensure that all voices felt heard and valued.

Critical reflection on power relations and positionality of participants and researchers is important in the context of WhatsApp focus groups where participants may be unfamiliar with the technology itself and cannot see and engage with other participants and researchers face-to-face. At the same time, we suggest that the asynchronous WhatsApp focus group format has the potential to encourage more equitable forms of dialogue and knowledge exchange for several reasons. Firstly, the ability for participants to reflect on questions and share their response in their own time reduces the problem, frequently evident in in-person focus groups, of discussions being dominated by those participants who are more confident and verbose, frequently those in positions of greater power and authority (see Abrams et al., 2015). Some participants require time to consider their response before feeling confident enough to share it with the group, and this is supported by the asynchronous discussion format. In addition, we found that participants frequently posted more than one response to questions. After reflecting and listening to others’ responses, they often contributed additional examples and insights, resulting in a richer and more nuanced discussion than we had previously experienced in in-person focus groups.

Secondly, as suggested by researchers such as Colom, online discussion formats can have an ‘equalising and disinhibiting’ effect on conversation as a result of reducing concerns about ‘class and appearance’ (p. 455). This was evident in our discussions; differences of race, ethnicity, gender, class and education were not ignored, indeed in many cases they were explicitly addressed, but they were minimised and less prominent due to the nature of the voice note format.

Thirdly, for some participants, the WhatsApp focus group can also avoid the power imbalances that arise due to the location or venue of in-person focus groups. For example, some participants expressed a feeling of discomfort in unfamiliar professional or clinical spaces such as clinics, health centres or office buildings; the WhatsApp format enabled participants to join the discussion from their home environment, which may be more comfortable and relaxed.

There are several potential limitations to our WhatsApp discussion format. Firstly, the most important limitation of conducting research on WhatsApp is that some potential participants are excluded due to lack of access to a smartphone, phone network or electricity. In addition, some participants who did join the project found that they could not always respond as quickly as they wanted to because of lack of phone charge or unreliable network. Secondly, using an asynchronous voice note method means that researchers cannot gain the additional insight afforded by participants’ body language and the potential for developing rapport through face-to-face interaction. A final potential drawback is that participants who do not have a safe or comfortable home environment may experience more challenges in contributing their ideas freely in the WhatsApp focus group format.

We found that a methodological approach combining WhatsApp focus group discussions, in-person interviews and participant observation enabled us to gain both a broad understanding of kanyeleng concepts and practices, and in-depth insights into individual experiences and changing forms of creativity and connection. We suggest that while WhatsApp offers valuable potential as a methodological tool, it requires careful consideration of the specifics of the research context and participant experiences, including local dynamics of inclusion and exclusion.

Responding to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic

Our interviews and focus group discussions highlighted multifaceted challenges experienced by kanyeleng groups and health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Firstly, kanyeleng performers emphasised the way COVID restrictions, in the early stages of the pandemic, reduced their opportunities to come together in the community. This impacted kanyeleng livelihoods because they could not perform and receive income as they normally would. At the same time, kanyeleng explained that the lack of musical gatherings impacted social relationships in the community, causing tensions to emerge between family and friends. As one kanyeleng participant stated, ‘It’s true. This corona, since it came, it destroyed a lot of our humanity/ways of being social’ (personal communication, 2021).

Secondly, both health workers and kanyeleng performers emphasised the problem of misinformation shared through social media, which prevented people from following the recommended COVID prevention measures such as social distancing, masking, handwashing and vaccination. As one kanyeleng woman explained,

In the past, vaccines were done. Do you not know this? Like whenever the wind is coming, the health workers will come to vaccinate. But this social media has tormented us! It made it very difficult for us. (Personal communication, 2021)

Many participants noted that, prior to COVID-19, their work raising awareness about vaccination programmes for diseases such as polio had been easier, and the vaccine uptake had been high. Their experience working on the COVID-19 vaccination campaign was more challenging because of the misinformation shared on social media, such as statements that vaccination would cause death or infertility (Ennab et al., 2022; Hlongwa et al., 2022). As a result, uptake of the vaccine was slow. As of March 2023, only 27.9% of Gambians had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine (World Health Organisation (WHO), 2023). Our research participants observed that the challenges presented by the pandemic, including social conflicts, mistrust and misinformation, made the health communication work of kanyeleng groups more difficult and also (as discussed further below) even more important.

Kanyeleng communication was an important component of the Gambia’s COVID-19 communication strategy implemented by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. Following the WHO guidance, the overall strategy was described as Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE). The WHO policy brief on RCCE highlights a number of benefits of the approach, including an emphasis on ‘Improving trust through strategic communication and co-developing solutions that best fit community needs’ (see also Adebisi et al., 2021; WHO, 2022). In the Gambian context, the strategy encompassed multiple forms of communication and engagement, including radio and television talk shows; social media postings; establishment of a 24-hour call centre; and extensive community engagement activities. Community engagement activities included training of kanyeleng groups and other traditional communicators; a national caravan tour that brought performers and health workers to sites throughout the country; commissioning songs from popular artists (e.g. ST Brikama Boyo and Jaliba Kuyateh); and engaging with opinion leaders such as village heads, religious leaders, village development committees and youth.

Our research suggests that this multifaceted approach was necessary to engage with diverse audiences around the country. At the same time, when we asked which strategies were most effective in counteracting misinformation relating to COVID-19, research participants consistently emphasised the importance of community engagement aspects of the programme, including in-person forms of communication such as kanyeleng events. While social media communication was taken up as an important aspect of the COVID-19 response, it was not seen as adequate in itself for overcoming misinformation. This reflects the significance for research participants of having two-way communication and active participation, rather than one-way dissemination of information from health experts to communities, a major theme in research on communication for social change (see Servaes, 2022). It also reflects the sense on the part of kanyeleng that their practices of domestication of social media spaces would never be a substitute for in-person engagement, but rather provided an opportunity to amplify and extend the impact of that engagement.

Kanyeleng experience of WhatsApp

The changing role of social media was an important theme in our research, with participants identifying both strengths and limitations of social media platforms for communication and music making. Our research highlighted the way the COVID-19 pandemic fostered increased use of social media by health workers, kanyeleng groups and the wider community. Social media, particularly WhatsApp, was described by research participants as a beneficial tool to facilitate communication with family and friends during lockdowns, and to enable health communication work by sharing information and building a virtual community for the COVID-19 prevention efforts. At the same time, our participants emphasised the negative effects of social media in the broader community. As one health worker explained, ‘social media is important in terms of spreading health information to the population and also can also be dangerous in terms of people sharing misinformation’ (personal communication, 2021).

The themes identified in our research in the Gambia contribute to a growing body of scholarship on social media and power in Africa. In research on WhatsApp use in Nigeria, focused on political participation and misinformation, Cheeseman et al. argue that:

WhatsApp is a disruptive technology that challenges existing hierarchies in ways that are simultaneously emancipatory and destructive . . . The challenge is therefore to understand both aspects of WhatsApp’s impact and the ways in which they interact. (Cheeseman et al., 2020: 147)

In our research, this understanding WhatsApp as both emancipatory and destructive relates to gendered experiences of social media and mobile phone use in the Gambian context. On the one hand, similar to the findings of Muswede and Sithole (2022) in South Africa, WhatsApp served as a source of psychosocial support and information for marginalised women during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, as documented by Gibbs et al., (2022) although ‘cellphones have created new spaces and opportunities for women’s agency’, they have not significantly changed the broader gendered constraints on women’s lives (p. 1382).

Our findings in the Gambia showed that WhatsApp was seen to be both beneficial in supporting new forms of connectivity and creativity (important for kanyeleng women in rural areas) but at the same time, spreading fear, distrust and division. Features of WhatsApp and the content shared on the platform serve to exclude, and to limit the extent to which kanyeleng participants can understand and have their voices heard. At the same time, to some extent kanyeleng have been able to domesticate WhatsApp spaces to suit their own priorities and needs; in particular, WhatsApp is used to support new social connections and forms of creativity, as well as new forms of power and influence.

Kanyeleng participants used proverbs and stories to describe the complexity of their experiences, emphasising both the positive and negative aspects of WhatsApp use. For example, one participant explained that ‘WhatsApp created a lot and destroyed a lot’ (a ye kuu jamaa dadaa, a ye kuu jamaa tinya), while another stated ‘it benefited us and it bothered us’ (a ye n nafaa le, a ye n bataandi fanang). These kanyeleng perspectives are aligned with research conducted by Cruz and Harindranath (2020) suggesting that WhatsApp groups are ‘both a source of joy and support on the one hand, and anxiety and trouble on the other’. The benefits and challenges of WhatsApp use were discussed at length with reference to kanyeleng women’s individual experience of the medium. For most of the kanyeleng participants in the research, WhatsApp was the only social media platform that they engaged with. WhatsApp was described as being much more accessible to people with limited formal education and literacy, as a result of the simplicity of the app and the voice note function.

While they identified benefits of engagement with social media, kanyeleng strongly emphasised the challenges and limitations of WhatsApp as a medium. Some aspects of kanyeleng experience of WhatsApp suggest a form of ‘digital colonialism’ (Kwet, 2019) in which the functionality of the technology itself, as well as the flow of value (e.g. profit and other benefits), are designed with outside interests in mind and not well aligned with the needs of rural women in the Gambia (Hassan and Hitchen, 2022). This is evident in the problems of access experienced by many kanyeleng women and in the anxious responses to some content that was offensive or shared without adequate explanation or context. Such content included pornographic images or GIFs, and images or video recordings of accidents, kidnappings or deaths. Kanyeleng responses suggested a sense of media overload, which is a problem not unique to the Gambia (Misra and Stokols, 2012). At the same time, kanyeleng experiences of frightening or offensive content must be understood in relation to rural life experiences in the Gambia, where many people have only recently begun to engage with social media and close-knit communities have strong cultures of social support in response to the misfortunes of others. The unprecedented exposure to tragic stories from afar led to a sense of overwhelm for some of our research participants who had to negotiate new ways to process an influx of upsetting information.

As one of the kanyeleng participants explained,

This social media . . . We got difficulties there. Because shocking things and frightening things, they put all that out there, they bring it to us, and we look at it. And that kind is not good! What you are looking at, it is not sweet for your soul. It can keep frightening you. You will hear it in your ears as well. That is difficult. (Kanyeleng Focus Group Discussion Participant, 2021, personal communication)

The sense of apprehension relating to the content shared on social media was strong, despite the real appreciation for the new social connections that kanyeleng were able to develop through the WhatsApp group.

In addition to the problem of the content itself, discussions highlighted issues of access as broken mobiles, lack of charge or poor network prevented women from participating as frequently as they would like. Some women shared a mobile with family members; others had to ask for assistance from family members to use the app due to low literacy and unfamiliarity with the technology (see Hassan and Hitchen, 2022 for related discussion). Many kanyeleng groups had just one member with a smartphone who was responsible for sharing updates with her fellow group members. In addition, some material shared on the group was not accessible to all, such as English language recordings or text content.

WhatsApp as a kanyeleng space: The National Traditional Communicators Group

Despite the challenges of the medium, kanyeleng identified benefits of WhatsApp in facilitating social connections and information sharing. These benefits were discussed primarily in relation to the National Traditional Communicators WhatsApp Group, which was established by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in February 2021. The primary purpose of the group in its initial conception was to enable rapid sharing of information and reporting on the activities of the kanyeleng groups in each region. The group was established as part of the Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 communication efforts, following a series of training workshops conducted with kanyeleng groups throughout the country who were tasked with disseminating information about COVID-19 within their own communities. Many of the kanyeleng participants in our research reported that this was the first time they had engaged with WhatsApp in a sustained way. The voice note function enables people with limited literacy to share messages at a time when they have access to network, phone charge and credit.

Participants in our focus groups spoke at length about the benefits of having a WhatsApp group for kanyeleng in the different regions of the country. As one kanyeleng participant explained:

We don’t know each other. Some have never even seen each other. But we talk there until our messages are sweet to each other. Until it sits in each other’s hearts, we love each other . . . we see that benefit there . . . we are all here, as though we are from the same mother and father . . . Our messages are reaching each other, it is sweet for everyone. (Kanyeleng Focus Group Discussion Participant, 2021)

The benefits of the WhatsApp group are described here in terms of fostering a sense family and love between people who may have never met in person. Being ‘from the same mother and father’ in a polygynous context refers to a close family relationship characterised by mutual support and care, in contrast with the sense of competition that is sometimes experienced by children of the same father and different mothers (McConnell, 2015; Roth, 2014). While Cruz and Harindranath (2020) have theorised WhatsApp as a ‘digital kinship technology’ for families in Mexico, kanyeleng practices suggest an extended understanding of kanyeleng kinship facilitated through WhatsApp, including connections between people who are not biologically related and have never met in person. This kanyeleng conceptualisation of family through WhatsApp aligns with James Odhiambo Ogone’s theorisation of the ‘communal ethos’ evident in the way social media is integrated into existing ways of relating to others in Kenya (Ogone, 2023: 140).

The benefits of WhatsApp were described by another participant as an ongoing form of togetherness, or ‘sitting together’ that fosters happiness and mutual learning:

[Whatsapp’s] benefit was big to me . . . Because those who we are talking with, our eyes have never seen each other in this world. But thanks to God, it is as though we are sitting together. All the time we are together. Eh! I can’t even explain it . . . If I am sitting, it is as though I am in a group . . . The happiness is big to me. Secondly . . . this Whatsapp increased my knowledge . . . This learning that is happening, I found benefit there in that way. (Kanyeleng Focus Group Discussion Participant, 2021, personal communication)

The interplay between socialising and knowledge sharing, as described here, was frequently evident in the messages shared on the WhatsApp group. The group served multiple purposes. For health workers, the group was a means for them to easily share information and updates with kanyeleng in every region of the country, including women living in remote and inaccessible areas. It also allowed them to more easily monitor the kanyeleng groups and ensure that work was carried out as planned. For the kanyeleng women members, in addition to sharing of information and songs, the WhatsApp group serves as a means to socialise; to build a sense of a national kanyeleng community; and to motivate and inspire each other despite the challenges of the work. In the chat, there was extensive use of greetings, laughter, jokes, prayers, and call and response singing. While during busy times, many messages shared on the Whatsapp group related to the kanyeleng groups’ COVID-19 communication work, during other times most messages took the form of greetings, prayers and jokes, allowing the group members to maintain a sense of connection with other kanyeleng around the country. The joy that the kanyeleng took in this sense of connection and family that emerged through the Whatsapp forum was frequently emphasised in the discussions. Kanyeleng also used WhatsApp to facilitate the creative process, sharing songs and ideas with others, and experimenting with a kind of asynchronous call and response.

The majority of kanyeleng messages shared on the WhatsApp groups we participated in for this research took the form of voice notes, primarily in the Mandinka language, with some in Wolof or Pulaar. Some kanyeleng also shared images, video, song recordings or GIFs. Messages and media shared on the WhatsApp group demonstrate a complex process of negotiation between the norms of kanyeleng interaction and the possibilities and limitations of WhatsApp as a medium.

The benefits that kanyeleng experienced through participating on the WhatsApp group can be understood as emerging through a process of domestication in which the affordances of the social media space are creatively exploited for kanyeleng purposes. This aligns with Saho’s (2012) work on domestication of space in kanyeleng ritual. Our theorisation of kanyeleng engagement with social media also contributes to the broader body of research on ‘domestication of technology’, which examines the ways in which people appropriate technology in their everyday lives, particularly within households (Hahn and Kibora, 2008; Hartmann, 2015, 2023). This work has been important in bringing attention to both content and context of technology use. Analyses have addressed complex issues such as the way technologies are integrated into everyday social and cultural contexts; moral economies of the household; and gendered inequalities in access to technologies. Recent scholarship on social media in Africa, however, has critiqued domestication theory for exhibiting ethnocentric assumptions about the nature of the household and family (based on research in the Global North) that do not adequately describe experiences of people living in the Global South. Contributors to the edited volume The Routledge Handbook of Media and Technology Domestication (e.g. Helle-Valle and Storm-Mathisen, 2023; Ogone, 2023) have suggested that there is a need for in-depth ethnographic research in diverse settings to provide a more complete and nuanced understanding of domestication processes in the Global South and in African contexts specifically.

Kanyeleng engagement with WhatsApp illustrates limitations of domestication theory in its emphasis on a notion of the household as the private space in which technology is integrated into lived experience. Indeed, as Helle-Valle and Storm-Mathisen (2023) argue, the public-private distinction often assumed in domestication theory is culturally specific and does not apply in many African contexts. Based on research in the Kalahari, they suggest that ‘domestication processes are rarely linked to the home and the family, more often to the individual or to the larger kin group/local network’ (Helle-Valle and Storm-Mathisen, 2023: 166). Similarly, Ogone (2023) puts forward the notion of ‘communal domestication’ to describe ‘the adoption of technologies into existing socio-cultural contexts of a given community in line with its philosophies and functional needs’ (p. 149).

Our research with kanyeleng WhatsApp groups provides insight into a process of domesticating technology that is culturally situated, requiring analysis of the way local systems of knowledge engage with new media technologies. For kanyeleng, this process of domestication is part of a broader ritual practice that involves claiming space through participatory music performances, trickery and ritual inversion. The complexity of kanyeleng engagement with WhatsApp aligns with Cruz and Harindranath’s (2020) perspective on WhatsApp as a ‘technology of life’ which is situated and relational, requiring ethnographic approaches to go beyond assumptions of ‘universality of digital experience’.

Kanyeleng domestication of social media spaces is evident in the way voice notes frequently referenced notions of place, time and musicality that align with broader cultures of kanyelengyaa (being a kanyeleng). For example, kanyeleng frequently made statements such as ‘I am standing on everybody’s doorstep’; ‘I am greeting everyone, those who came before and those who will come after’; and ‘I am greeting you all from Kartong to Koina’ (towns located on opposite sides of the country). Kanyeleng also referenced the temperature of the WhatsApp group, with heat indicating a thickness of sound and activity. In addition, kanyeleng experimented with forms of call and response singing in which a lead singer posted the beginning of a song and others joined in (in a separate voice note) with a response line. This adaptation of kanyeleng orality on social media is suggestive of what Reginold Royston (2021) describes as a ‘new orality’, which is defined by ‘the oral aesthetics and the material effects of sound embedded in the digital consumption and production of new media tools’ (p. 2). Whereas Royston’s notion of new orality considers the way digital audio media combine aspects of written and oral cultures, kanyeleng practices suggest a creative, alternative experience of orality on social media, one which is not indebted to written culture or reliant on literacy, yet enabling of new forms of listening and new forms of women’s power. The centrality of song in kanyeleng orality builds on established cultural precedents for aural learning in this part of West Africa (Ndiaye and Rowley, 2022) and for songs to provide a means to build social relationships of reciprocity and mutual support (McConnell, 2015).

Kanyeleng also shaped the space of the WhatsApp group through prayers, which are an important aspect of their ritual practice. This is consistent with a broader emphasis on prayer in daily life, faith and sociality in The Gambia, which is over 90% Muslim. As one kanyeleng participant explained, people have different capabilities, and prayer is believed to be more efficacious when many people are involved; in kanyeleng ritual, many people pray together so that if one participant’s prayer is not answered, another’s will be. Some health worker participants also expressed appreciation for kanyeleng prayers, explaining that they are believed to be efficacious as well as motivating and inspiring for the whole group.²

Another important aspect of kanyeleng ritual practice and domestication of space involves negotiation of gender roles. Kanyeleng are known for dressing in men’s clothing and taking on male nicknames for comic effect, as part of a practice of ritual inversion and to evade evil spirits (Hough, 2006; Saho, 2012). These practices are adapted on WhatsApp groups, where joking references to male nicknames were common. In addition, kanyeleng use items associated with women’s domestic labour (e.g. plastic jerry cans, metal bowls, mortars and pestles) as musical instruments, bringing them into spaces normally dominated by men such as health education events.³ In the WhatsApp groups, recordings of kanyeleng performances featuring these repurposed domestic instruments were shared. Connections to women’s domestic labour are also evident in the strong connection with food and cooking in kanyeleng activities and rituals (Hough, 2006). In everyday practice, kanyeleng are notorious for stealing food and for eating unusual foods or combinations of foods that others would find unappetising. Kanyeleng are frequently invited to cook for events as well as to perform music and dance. In WhatsApp spaces, the strong kanyeleng association with food was evident in regular jokes and references to eating and cooking. For example, light-hearted jokes were shared about kanyeleng or health workers eating too much monoo (millet porridge). These various examples illustrate a process of domesticating WhatsApp, which includes incorporating sounds and references to women’s domestic spaces and domestic labour, in a way that is more broadly characteristic of kanyeleng ritual and performance practices.

In Saho’s (2012) theorisation, kanyeleng ritual domestication of physical spaces serves as a means of building social support and power. This is also true in the virtual space of WhatsApp groups, as kanyeleng create a sense of togetherness and belonging through interacting with other kanyeleng from around the country, while also generating new forms of power and influence. That is, kanyeleng claim space in WhatsApp to share their ideas and music more widely than they had previously been possible and achieve a sense of collective authority and motivation for the work. The process of making WhatsApp into a kanyeleng space facilitates these positive experiences by making women feel ‘at home’ in a space that was previously unfamiliar and even alienating due to illiteracy and other access challenges described above.

Conclusions

Our research explored the way health workers and kanyeleng groups adapted their practices in response to changes inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic in the Gambia, including increased use of social media and widespread misinformation. Research findings have significance for understandings of domestication of technologies in the Global South, as well as implications for future research on communication for social change. Research was conducted through an approach combining in-person interviews, focus group discussions conducted on WhatsApp and participant observation both in person and on WhatsApp. We developed a novel asynchronous voice-note focus group format with the goal of facilitating involvement of participants located in areas with unreliable network and generating rich data through enabling exchange of ideas among participants. Seemingly small details of research method can have large implications for who participates and how they participate. Therefore, we suggest that greater attention to localised forms of inclusion and exclusion, connection and disconnection on social media is necessary to support the inclusion of diverse perspectives in research. In particular, we call for greater innovation and creativity in research method to allow marginalised groups to contribute their perspectives.

Our methodological approach enabled us to gain insight into changing forms of engagement with WhatsApp as a tool for sharing information and building social connections. At the same time, as a result of the challenges associated with WhatsApp use and the limitations of the medium for music making, it was not described as a substitute for in-person, participatory performances. Rather, kanyeleng participants suggested that getting to know each other on WhatsApp made them even more eager to meet in person to sing, dance and eat. The Mandinka phrase ‘nga luwo lo’, was used to describe the activity of creating a dancing circle, which was only possible to do in person, not on WhatsApp. Exchange of messages and songs on WhatsApp was a means to facilitate and amplify the impact of in-person music making (e.g. by sharing information about events in advance and sharing recordings afterwards), not a replacement for it.

Likewise, health workers emphasised the ongoing importance of in-person community engagement events for effective health promotion programmes. Research participants felt that widespread misinformation shared on social media could only be effectively mitigated through in-person communication with a trusted individual or group. One health worker explained:

We have seen communities where it was hard for us to penetrate, but when the traditional communicators [kanyeleng] went around, those are communities that accepted, and you know . . . they took up the vaccine . . .. it is a traditional way of communicating, and it is very effective. (Focus Group Discussion Participant, 2021, personal communication)

In discussions, the importance of co-presence and participation was emphasised. That is, to overcome the problem of misinformation, there is a need to spend time with people, to listen to them and to communicate in a culturally sensitive manner so that trust can be established. This in turn provides a starting point for clear communication and development of understanding. Rather than being a one-directional process of information dissemination or performing ‘to’ the target audience, effective health promotion involves a process of dialogue and performing ‘with’ other people (McConnell, 2019; Obregon and Waisbord, 2012).

Because many of the participants in our research had only recently begun to engage with social media in a sustained way, the challenges of media overwhelm, amplification of social conflicts and misinformation were thrown into sharp relief in the descriptions shared in interviews and focus group discussions. At the same time, however, cultural continuity and creative uses of WhatsApp functions like the voice note were evident, such as in kanyeleng asynchronous call-and-response singing. Relationships were formed through WhatsApp that were novel in enabling ongoing close communication and sharing with people who had never met in person and who lived in different regions of the country. Yet these relationships took shape through forms of interaction (prayers, jokes, greetings and songs) that were consistent with longstanding kanyeleng practices and were described in ways reminiscent of in-person participatory events.

Our research explored social media domestication enacted by a group typically excluded from research on social media: rural illiterate and semi-literate women in the Global South. Yet, we suggest, it is precisely within these settings of marginality, where people who have previously been excluded from participation domesticate technologies within their everyday lives and relationships, that we can best understand the complex impacts, affordances and limitations of those technologies. Furthermore, our participants highlighted creative adaptations of traditional forms of orality in social media spaces, a topic that has not been subject of adequate research attention and holds significance more broadly for understanding changing relationships with orality and literacy through digital media in the Global South and beyond.

Despite the many challenges associated with social media use, our research suggests that kanyeleng engagement with WhatsApp cannot entirely be interpreted from a perspective of digital colonialism, media overwhelm, or disruption of rural culture. In contrast, in some ways kanyeleng participation on WhatsApp demonstrates an empowering process of domesticating space. That is, kanyeleng are adapting and experimenting with WhatsApp to suit their own needs, to build a supportive social network and to explore new forms of creativity. This kanyeleng approach to domestication is not, as in foundational domestication of technology scholarship, a process of ‘homing’ (i.e. bringing social media into private spaces of the home (Helle-Valle and Storm-Mathisen, 2023)). In contrast, as in Saho’s (2012) original theorisation of ritual practice, kanyeleng domestication is a process of claiming public space and power. Kanyeleng engagement with WhatsApp is a significant extension of the process of domestication, which is characterised by new forms of kanyeleng orality on a digital format. Emerging forms of creativity and connection on social media have important implications for community-based practices such as kanyeleng music making into the future.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research was funded by a grant from the Australian National University Gender Institute.

ORCID iD

Bonnie B McConnell

Notes

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