Past and Present Musical Encounters across the Strait of Gibraltar

Project Information

MESG

Grant agreement ID: 758221

DOI

10.3030/758221

Project closed

EC signature date 26 September 2017

Start date 1 April 2018

End date 30 September 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 498 013,00

EU contribution

€ 1 498 013,00

Coordinated by

THE UNIVERSITY COURT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - MESG (Past and Present Musical Encounters across the Strait of Gibraltar)

Reporting period: 2022-01-01 to 2023-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The project has explored how music functions as a form of cultural encounter between different communities across the Strait of Gibraltar. It has examined the social, cultural and political factors that have given rise to these musical encounters, both in the context of French and Spanish colonialism in North Africa, and present-day contexts of immigration and cultural diplomacy. Musical encounter across this region is often underpinned by the legacies of medieval Spain (al-Andalus) and the notion of convivencia (coexistence) between Christians, Jews and Muslims. Yet the idealism associated with al-Andalus obscures the fact that the idea of a shared musical heritage emerged in the context of French and Spanish colonialism. Moreover, the performance of al-Andalus has become a dominant trope that obscures other ways of understanding musical encounters. This project has brought together different geographical, linguistic and musical specialisms to explore the role of music as a vehicle for encounter, underpinned by three research areas: 1) an examination of the musical ‘afterlives’ of al-Andalus – how the utopian history of Muslim and Jewish Spain is interpreted through music; 2) an analysis of how music and sound constituted a form of colonial encounter during French and Spanish colonialism in Algeria and Morocco. Focusing on micro-histories and hidden voices, we explore how music was used to legitimise and oppose colonialism; and 3) a study of intercultural music-making, drawing on ethnographic research with different communities and considering how colonial legacies continue to influence music making. The project has arrived at the following main contributions:
• It has offered a comparative analysis of music making in the Western Mediterranean, leading to an integrated understanding of how music facilitates cross-community dialogue and the negotiation of power relations/identities;
• It has examined the circulation of colonial legacies, demonstrating that music is not a neutral cultural expression, but is implicated in how such legacies are perpetuated;
• It has facilitated interdisciplinary conversation around musical encounter in the region, across a range of areas including ethnomusicology, postcolonial studies, history, cultural studies, visual culture and sound studies.
• It has contributed to society by 1) raising awareness of the diversity of musical expression in this region; 2) illustrating how music is connected with colonial legacies and power inequalities, and thus is not ‘neutral’; and 3) highlighting hidden or forgotten voices, repertoires and archives, some of which were products of colonial history or were marginalised by colonialism and the transition to independence.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Published Outputs: the team has published or has accepted for publication over 20 peer-reviewed articles or chapters in edited books. One edited book has been published, co-edited by Matthew Machin-Autenrieth, Samuel Llano and Salwa el-Shawan Castelo Branco entitled Music and the Making of Portugal and Spain since the Nineteenth Century (University of Illinois Press). Four other books are under contract: 1) Llano’s monograph The Empire of the Ear: The Musical and Sonic Architecture of Colonial Morocco (OUP); 2) Machin-Autenrieth's 'The Spanish–Moroccan Musical Brotherhood: Colonial Legacies, Interculturalism and Cultural Memory across the Strait of Gibraltar'; 3) Wilford's monograph 'Music and Sound in Franco-Algerian Encounters'; and 4) a volume edited by Elbaz called ‘Sonic Conversations in the Western Mediterranean: Music and Sound, Memory and Meaning’ (OUP, British Academy Proceedings Series).

Engagement in Academic Community and Knowledge Transfer: the team has been proactive in fostering networks with academics across disciplines. The results of our research have been extensively disseminated through conferences, workshops, invited seminars/keynotes, magazines, radio, among other formats. Our research has been international in its dissemination, reaching countries such as the UK, France, Spain, Morocco, Germany, the US, Israel and Switzerland. The team has engaged in a number of knowledge transfer activities, including concerts, exhibitions, workshops and public talks, as well as an online series featuring academic speakers, concerts and lecture-recitals.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Each researcher has made important contributions to their individual fields of study:
- Matthew Machin-Autenrieth (PI) is the first to analyse the colonial and postcolonial dimensions of Spanish–Moroccan musical exchange. This work brings into dialogue archival and ethnographic sources to explore the contradictory ways in which the idea of a musical brotherhood has been performed according to different social and ideological agendas (colonialism, fascism, cultural diplomacy, interculturalism).
- Samuel Llano (Senior Researcher) is the first to analyse how colonial intellectual writing and discourse about Moroccan music served to consolidate colonial power and shape resistance, while redrawing ethnic, religious and class boundaries. His work adds to growing discussions about the role of music and sound in shaping colonial encounters in Morocco.
- Vanessa Paloma Elbaz (Research Associate) is the first to study Jewish repertoires as part of a larger national conversation around identity and diversity in Spain and Morocco. This work reveals for the first time the complex story of how national identities in the trans-Gibraltar region are enmeshed with mobile and multi-lingual Jewish voices.
- Stephen Wilford (Research Associate) builds on scholarship that explores the relationship between Algeria and France throughout the colonial and postcolonial periods, which rarely addresses the role of music and sound. His work is also innovative in that it looks at the broader picture of the musical and extra-musical meanings constructed by Algerian performers across different genres, rather than focusing upon a single musical style.
- Eric Petzoldt (PhD Student) contributes to an increased interest within jazz studies and ethnomusicology, which seeks to trace local understandings of jazz outside of the USA. His work makes important contributions to discussions around the role of music as a vehicle for intercultural dialogue and how music is implicated in projects of cultural diplomacy between Morocco and the EU.

Overall the project has made the following key contributions:
• It increases an understanding of music as a means for structuring and negotiating colonial power relations in Algeria and Morocco;
• It offers the first study of how the presence of North African musics at colonial expositions in France and Spain reified colonial hierarchies;
• It brings to the foreground forgotten or silenced repertoires of certain groups under colonialism and how such groups continue to be positioned in relation to projects of nationalism and cultural diversity in Spain and Morocco;
• It offers a comparative analysis of the musical ‘afterlives’ of al-Andalus and how the performance of al-Andalus is used for different social and political ends;
• It builds on limited scholarship concerning how music constructs and negotiates multiple identities among North African communities in Europe, set against debates about social integration and multiculturalism;
• It is the first study to consider the role music plays in institutional projects of cultural diplomacy between North Africa and Southern Europe.

Strait of Gibraltar, the sea separating North Africa and Southern Europe