Migrancy and Music on Film

Martin Stokes

Migrancy and Music on Film

Music

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

This article discusses the Turkish-German director Fatih Akın’s Gegen die Wand/Duvara Karşı of 2004, John Baily’s pioneering ethnographic film Amir: An Afghan Refugee’s Life in Peshawar, Pakistan of 1985, and Palestinian artist Jumana Manna’s film-installation A Magical Substance Flows Into Me of 2016 through the lens of Bal’s migratory aesthetics. It argues that music and sound illuminate important facets of her argument about time’s ‘materiality’ and ‘stickiness’. But the article also offers a critical perspective. The three films – respectively products of commercial cinema, academic ethnography, and contemporary curatorial culture – portray complex struggles over time and history and the masteries and skills musicians bring to such struggles, while also questioning the narrative frameworks within which migrant and refugee musicians have been conventionally represented. They suggest some of the ways in which the study of music and sound might be more effectively
harnessed to contemporary perspectives on ‘the new diversities’.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	27-40
Number of pages	13
Journal	New Diversities
Volume	25
Issue number	1
Publication status	Accepted/In press - 12 Jul 2024

Keywords

Music, migrancy, film

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Cite this

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Migrancy and Music on Film

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

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