Geopolitics of Music and Cultural Industries
Exploring the extent, impacts and potentials of financial investment in the arts and culture sector in the 21st century
Presenter: Maria Rijo Lopes da Cunha (Copenhagen, DK)
Abstract
This presentation will introduce the core ideas at the heart of the upcoming one-day roundtable bringing together academics, cultural policy makers and artists entitled “Geopolitics of Music and Cultural Industries: Exploring the extent, impacts and potentials of financial investment in the arts and culture sector in the 21st century" (KUA). Namely, I will outline the need to examine the intersections between music and the arts, financial investment, and geopolitics, while highlighting the tangible and intangible benefits, dimensions, and potentials of investment in the arts and humanities sectors in societies across geopolitical spheres.
This discussion is grounded in two cornerstones of my academic research to date. First, my 2019-2022 postdoctoral research, which examined the transnational impacts and dynamics of cultural investment, production, consumption, and aesthetic change in the Middle Eastern region. Second, my recently published and co-edited anthology "Music, Soft Power and Cultural Diplomacy in the Middle East: Geopolitical Reconfigurations for the 21st Century" (Maria Rijo Lopes da Cunha, Jonathan H. Shannon, Virginia Danielson and Søren Møller Sørensen, eds.), published by Palgrave Macmillan in January 2024, laid the theoretical, aesthetic and conceptual groundwork that I intend to continue both in this upcoming event and in my forthcoming research.
This talk is an open invitation to fellow colleagues to participate in such a discussion.