Global Mediterranean. Postcolonial music histories (16th-20th centuries). IMS Intercongressional Symposium

Session

Popular music practices East to West

FP34

12 Jul 2025, 12:30

Aula 7

Conveners

Popular music practices East to West

• Giuliana De Luca (Università di Catania)

168. From Subversive Marginality to Hard-Right Populism: The Shifting Politics of “Arabesk” in Contemporary Turkey

12/07/2025, 12:30

Free paper

“Arabesk,” a music genre that blends Turkish folk music with Arabic influences, has periodically dominated public discussion in Turkey since its emergence in the 1960s. The genre has always implied a relationship to the ruling elite: once heavily disdained by the bureaucratic center, it was later co-opted for populist ambitions. A robust academic discourse on arabesk is found in the...

35. In Pursuit of a Sound Future: Industriousness in Maltese Popular Songs of the 1970s

12/07/2025, 12:50

Free paper

After its independence in 1964, Malta, a small Mediterranean island country, embarked on an extensive economic programme to diversify the island’s economy. This intensified in the 1970s under the socialist Labour government, which promoted the value of industriousness ('bżulija' in Maltese) as a key value for the country’s economic progress. In parallel with these economic and political...