Social Science Research Council

"Gendered Experiences? Assessing Women's Music Performances in Tunisia"
 
My research will focus on how popular and conservatory-trained female professional musicians assess their musical experiences, and on what it means to be a female professional musician in Tunisia today. I will work with female musicians active in popular music festivals and conservatories, the two contexts where they perform most prominently and publicly. Because the music festivals occur in the summer months and the conservatories are open between October and May, I will spend a full year in Tunisia: between September 2007 and August 2008.

By working with musicians such as the popular singer Shadia Shaabene and Amina Srarfi, who founded and directs a music conservatory and all-female music ensemble, I hope to investigate women's understandings of their gendered musical performances. My project will contribute to underserved fields of research such as studies of Tunisian popular music, detailed ethnographic studies of Arab women, and studies of women's affective responses to music and their lived experiences as musicians.