Soundworlds of North Africa

Anthropology of music approach to North African soundworlds—the sonic spaces where music, culture, and social action intersect. Centering the voices of North African scholars, musicians, and listeners of the contemporary Maghreb region (Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, Western Sahara, and their borderlands and diasporas). Topics may include the role of music in Amazigh rights and Sahrawi independence movements, spaces of Islamic-Jewish convergence, ritual healing and the recuperation of sub-Saharan heritages, traumas of migration, the Arab Spring, and mythmaking about North Africa by foreign and local powers. How to relate anthropological and social theory to public and “hidden” meanings embedded in the sounds of diverse musical genres.