John Schaefer is a Wikipedia editor and associate professor of anthropology at Miami University in Ohio.
His expertise lies in ethnomusicology, folklore, popular culture, and performance in the Middle East, North Africa, and West Africa, especially musical roots and routes across the Sahara Desert. In 2019 he was completing a book on Gnawa musicians in Morocco, who practice spirit possession and conduct trance healing rituals. He has also published on activism in Cairo's Tahrir Square, Moroccan protest music, psychedelic trance festivals, interactional analysis of music, and the use of the Internet in Ghana.
Articles:
2017, "Frontstage Backstage: Participatory Music and the Festive Sacred in Essaouira, Morocco." Western Folklore 76(1): 69-99.
2016, "Discrete/Discreet Appropriation: Paul Bowles, Non-Western Music, and Race in Tangier." Journal of North African Studies 21(4):1-29.
2016, "Observations on Gnawa Healing in Morocco: Music, Bodies and the Circuit of Capital." Performing Islam 4(2): 173-182.
2012, "Protest Song Marocaine." Middle East Report 263:20-32.
Book Chapters:
2015, "Middle Eastern Music and Popular Culture." In Soraya Altorki, Ed., Companion to the Anthropology of the Middle East. London: Wiley-Blackwell. Pp. 495-507.
2006, "Discussion Lists and Public Policy on iGhana: Chimps and Feral Activists." In Kyra Lanzelius, Ed., Native on the Net: Indigenous and Diasporic Peoples in the Virtual Age. London: Routledge.
Proceedings:
2005, "Rhythms of Power: Interaction in Musical Performance." Texas Linguistic Forum 48:167-176.