"This article explored the particular version of ‘national culture’ that emerged in Mali’s post-independent history at the interface of a governmental politics of culture and communication, media technologies, and people’s media engagement. I argued that the dialectical production of ‘the past’ as a source of cultural identity and nationalist pride was gradually transformed under the subsequent regimes of postcolonial Mali. Central parameters of claiming and validating one’s past have changed, along with a shift in significance (and employment) of ‘the past’. In previous decades, ‘remembering the past’ formed part of a hegemonic quest for a national heritage and an all-encompassing collective identity that tended to silence internal difference. This representation of national culture contrasts with more recent governmental attempts to create a sense of national unity not by reference to a common past but by acknowledging cultural diversity and celebrating the nation state’s capacity to ease out the tensions arising from internal difference. What conclusions can we draw from the shift from mass-mediated celebrations of oral traditions identified with practices of remembering an ‘authentic’ past to the staging of‘cultural diversity’ on state television? In what sense is this shift indicative of how individuals and groups need to frame and pursue their citizenship entitlements under current political conditions shaped by the effects of multiparty ‘democracy’?" (Conclusion, page 206)

"For many telespectators in urban Mali, Tuesday night is a jour fixe to be spent in front of the television screen, either at home or at a friend’s house – because at about 9:30 at night, the television program Terroir (‘From the Earth’) starts, featuring the music and ‘cultural traditions’ of Mali’s diverse regional cultures. It is usually introduced ‘live’ by its producer, a journalist whose renown even in the most remote urban areas of the north is largely a result of this program and who gives a short explanatory note about the particular ‘traditions’ to be shown that night. At about 11:00 p.m., when the program comes to a close, the producer, sitting outside the studio, is bombarded with phone calls from spectators who, as they put it, want to express their ‘gratitude’ to him." (Page 185)