Abstract
This chapter examines the flows of musics, musicians, aesthetics, and ideologies between the Arab Levant and the Gulf. It questions the centrality of such flows in reconfiguring Arab regional dynamics with new centers for cultural production in the Arab Gulf region, facilitated by a collective investment—‘cultural capital’—aided by online digital media tools. This strategy, I argue, connects cultural diplomacy with rebranding strategies leveraging conservative Arab Gulf societies into twenty-first century competitive international cultural markets.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alsalhi, A. 2018. SAUT IN BAHRAIN AND KUWAIT: History and Creativity in Concept and Practice. PhD Thesis. Department of Music, Royal Holloway, University of London.
Aouragh, M. and Chakravartty, P. 2015. “ Infrastructures of empire: towards a critical geopolitics of media and information studies” in Media, Culture & Society Vol. 38(4) 559–575.
Biswas, R. 2015. Resha** the financial architecture for development finance: the new devel- opment banks. Working paper, 2/2015. London: Global South Unit, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Bryant, R., and Daniel M. Knight. 2019. The Anthropology of the Future. New Departures in Anthropology Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clarke, D. 2016. Theorizing the Role of Cultural Products in Cultural Diplomacy from a Cultural Studies Perspective. International Journal of Cultural Policy 22 (2): 147–163.
Eliassen et al. 2018. Contested Qualities: Negotiating Value in Arts and Culture. Fagbogforlaget.
Ewa Mazierska, Leslie Gillon, & Tony Rigg (Eds.). 2018. Popular Music in the Post-Digital Age: Politics, Economy, Culture and Technology. New York and London: Bloombsbury Publishing.
Fosler-Lussier, D. 2012. Music Pushed, Music Pulled: Cultural Diplomacy, Globalization, and Imperialism. In Diplomatic History, vol. 36, 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2015. Music in America’s Cold War Diplomacy. Oakland: University of California Press.
Licoppe, C. 2004. ‘Connected’ Presence: The Emergence of a New Repertoire for Managing Social Relationships in a Changing Communication Technoscape. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22: 135–156.
Mignolo, W. 2013. Geopolitics of Sensing and Knowing: On (de)Coloniality, Border Thinking, and Epistemic Disobedience. In Postcolonial Studies, vol. 14 (3), 273–283. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis.
Novak, D. 2013. Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation.Duke University Press.
Nye, J. 1990. Soft Power. Foreign Policy, (Autumn), No. 80, Twentieth Anniversary, 153–171. Slate Group.
O’Brien Bernini, L. M. 2016. The neoliberalisation of cultural production:An ethnography of professionalI rish traditional music [Unpublished P h.D. dissertation].University of Limerick.
Okano-Heijmans, Maaike. 2013. Economic Diplomacy: Japan and the Balance of National Interests. Leiden: Brill.
Papacharissi, Z. 2014. Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology, and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rambarran, S & Whiteley, S. 2016. The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality. Oxford University Press (OUP), New York.
Reinsch, P. and Westrup, L. (Eds) 2020. The Soundtrack Album: Listening to Media. London: Routledge.
Rijo Lopes da Cunha, M. M. 2017. The Contemporary Revival of Nahda Music in Lebanon: Politics of Remembrance and Representation. PhD Thesis. Music Department, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
Rijo Lopes da Cunha, M. 2022a. The Contemporary Revival of Nahḍa Music in Lebanon: The role of Nostalgia in the Creation of a Contemporary Transnational Music Tradition. Acta Musicologica 94 (1): 87–108, Basel: IMS/Bärenreiter.
———. 2022b. Beirut from ‘October Revolution’ of 2019 to the 4th of August Explosion in 2020: Transnational Solidarity, social media, and Affective Communities. In Diasporic Political Communication: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives, ed. Ehab Galal, Mostafa Shehata, and Claus Valling Pedersen. Routledge.
Small, C. 2010. Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening. Conneticut: Wesleyan University Press.
Tragaki, D. 2015. “Rebetiko past, performativity, and the political: The music of Yiannis Angelakas” in Acta Musicologica. Bärenreiter-Verlag Basel AG.
Tsioulakis, I. 2020. Musicians in Crisis: Working and Playing in the Greek Popular Music Industry. London, NY: Routledge.
Villanueva, C. 2007. Representing Cultural Diplomacy: Soft Power, Cosmopolitan Constructivism and Nation Branding in Mexico and Sweden. Acta Wexionensia.
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Ahmad al-Salhi, Mustafa Said, Ghassan Sahhab, Abed Kobeissy and Ali Hout for their support of my research in Kuwait.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rijo Lopes da Cunha, M.M. (2024). Music as Cultural Diplomacy: Analyzing the Role of Musical Flows from the Arab Levant to New Cultural Poles in the Arab Gulf in the Twenty-First Century. In: Rijo Lopes da Cunha, M.M., Shannon, J., Møller Sørensen, S., Danielson, V. (eds) Music and Cultural Diplomacy in the Middle East. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36279-8_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36279-8_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-36278-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-36279-8
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)