Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale (2024): 1–18 © e Author(s) doi:10.3167/saas.2024.1031OF1 Published on behalf of the European Association of Social Anthropologists ALICE ATERIANUS-OWANGA Anthropologies in/of the Black Mediterranean Popular Culture, Identity and Creativity across the Afro-European matrix Abstract: is article draws on ethnographic elements collected in the heterogeneous field of Afri- can music and dance in France and French-speaking Switzerland, as well as on a previous literature on popular travelling music and dance genres between African and European cities. It participates in an ongoing conversation about the concept of the Black Mediterranean, and insists on its rele- vance to analyse migrations, cross-cultural formations and postcolonial conversations taking place between some European countries and their former colonies through popular music and dance pro- ductions. Ethnography and history of travelling music and dance genres leads to approach the Black Mediterranean as both a borderland of racial violence and inequalities, and a web of cultural signs, transactions, and practices that connect the African continent and European cities. is transconti- nental matrix participates in reconfiguring the representations of Africanity, Blackness and Afrope- anity in ambiguous and multifaceted ways. Keywords: Black Mediterranean, identity, migration, popular music and dance, sabar, Senegal A Saturday aſternoon at a dancing studio in the quiet city of Lausanne. Located in a former factory, the large and sober room is decorated with three wooden benches and a few yoga mats covered by wax-print fabrics. Two dozen people of different ages have taken off their shoes and are sitting waiting for the performance to begin. e duet performing that day unites two female dancers (Kudy and R.), both of Congolese ori- gin, with a Swiss music producer (emrok). e piece is called ‘Kosakana’ – from a lingala word meaning ‘having fun’ – and addresses the issues of games and childhood memories stored in the body. From kids’ tricks to adult competition, both dancers’ movements represent the pleasure of ball games, double-dutch, dressing up, hide and seek, or hopscotch, while progressively revealing the hazardous growth to adulthood and the entrance into a world of anxiety, alienation, competition and judgement. Kosakana is a contemporary dance piece. Yet as the performance goes on, the dancers include gestures stemming from different African repertoires that they incor- porate or alternate with their own favourite style: contemporary on the one hand, house and hip-hop on the other. In the first part of their duet, they perform ndom- bolo waist movements to refer to the ludic and playful time of childhood. Later on, Kudy executes several turns and wide arm motions, recalling sabar Senegalese dance. This article is available open access under a CC BY-ND 4.0 license as part of Berghahn Open Anthro, a subscribe-to open model for APC-free open access made possible by the journal’s subscribers.