Description du projet
Mieux comprendre les artistes qui protestent contre la ségrégation raciale
Pour protester contre un problème, les artistes et les musiciens organisent souvent des boycotts culturels, qu’il s’agisse du mouvement BDS (boycott, désinvestissement, sanctions) mené par les Palestiniens, de la campagne #BlackLivesMatter ou des campagnes de désinvestissement des combustibles fossiles. La nature conflictuelle de ces mouvements a soulevé la question de l’interaction entre l’échange culturel et le militantisme politique. Le projet Beyond Boycott, financé par l’UE, étudiera cette question dans une perspective historique. L’attention sera portée sur le boycott culturel mondial de l’apartheid en Afrique du Sud entre 1954 et 1991. Le projet s’intéressera à l’histoire cachée des interprètes de musique artistique occidentale qui ont contesté les sanctions imposées pour se produire dans le pays. Il cartographiera l’ampleur des ruptures de boycott et étudiera leur contribution à un système de classification raciale.
Objectif
"This project proposes to investigate the relationship between Western art music, cultural boycott, and the making of race in apartheid South Africa. In recent years people around the world have been encouraged to participate in political activism by the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, #RhodesMustFall, and numerous fossil fuel divestment campaigns. Artists and musicians, too, have contributed to these movements both as activists and through their work. But in a world where the arts are often celebrated for their capacity to promote peaceful dialogue, the confrontational nature of protest movements has prompted artists, scholars, and activists to ask, ‘How do cultural exchange and political activism intersect?’ ‘Beyond Boycott’ addresses this question from a historical perspective by turning to one of the most important precursors of current boycott movements: the global cultural boycott of apartheid South Africa (c.1954-1991). The proposed project develops a social and cultural history of the South African boycott, focusing especially on the hidden histories of Western art music performers—commonly described as ‘classical’ musicians—who defied sanctions to perform in the country. Through archival research, the project maps the extent of classical musicians’ breaking of the boycott, before asking how these performers interacted with the anti-apartheid movement, and how their appearances in South Africa contributed to a racial classification system that viewed culture as a marker of race. The main research objectives are to trace the extent of musical activity by international performers in defiance of the boycott, and to investigate the apartheid government's use of these performances to develop racial classifications and to advance political objectives. ‘Beyond Boycott’ fosters a new area of interdisciplinary research on the relationship between art music, race, and transnational politics."
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinateur
WC1E 6BT London
Royaume-Uni